Germany · Restored
Schloss Kalkum
Schloss Kalkum is a water castle in the Kalkum district north of Düsseldorf, notable for its early 19th-century Classicist conversion and its associated English-style palace park. The present ensemble is a closed, four-winged quadrangle formed by a manor house and connected outer bailey; the site has been a listed historic ensemble since 1984 and today hosts cultural events within restored buildings and grounds.
Its prime
1814
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1814
What Schloss Kalkum looked like in its prime.
A closed, four-winged water castle forming a rectangular quadrangle surrounded by a continuous moat and set within an English-style landscape park. The manor house and outer bailey are joined by inserted linking ranges to present a unified Classicist elevation with regular rows of rectangular windows and a clear central entrance axis from the park. Service ranges and courtyards occupy the wings, producing an enclosed inner court and a formal approach through the main gate.
Its story
The story of Schloss Kalkum.
Kalkum Castle, a water castle in the north of Düsseldorf near Kaiserswerth, began as one of the oldest knights' seats in the region, the ancestral seat of the lords von Kalkum, first recorded in 1176 with Willelmus de Calecheim. From the 14th century the family served the counts, later dukes, of Berg: Peter von Kalkum was Berg court master in 1360 and ducal Landdrost from 1361 to 1383. Their feud with the city of Cologne, the Kalkum Feud, reportedly ended with Cologne troops besieging and destroying the complex in 1405.
Around the middle of the 15th century the property passed to the lords von Winkelhausen, who determined its fate for the following 300 years and remodelled it in the 17th century as a Baroque castle. Its present Classicist form dates from a conversion of 1808–1814 by the Krefeld master builder Georg Peter Leydel, who closed outer bailey and manor house into a four-winged quadrangle, while Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe laid out a palace park in the English landscape style.
The castle became known far beyond Prussia through the divorce war between its owner Count Edmund von Hatzfeldt and his wife Sophie, who was represented by the 20-year-old Ferdinand Lassalle. After the Second World War it housed refugees, then a state archive until 2014; restored between 1954 and 1966 and listed since 1984, its 19-hectare park is open to the public and the buildings host concerts and cultural events.
Step inside
7 places to explore in 1814.
The record describes 7 distinct spots at Schloss Kalkum, including 1 interior: principal living and social rooms (interior). Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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Clans who held Schloss Kalkum.
The families that held Schloss Kalkum for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Kalkum
Ancestral seat of the lords von Kalkum, recorded from 1176, until the mid-15th century.
Winkelhausen
Held by the lords von Winkelhausen for some 300 years from the mid-15th century.
Hatzfeldt
Owned in the 19th century by Count Edmund von Hatzfeldt.
Nearby
