Edenserloog Castle

Edenserloog Castle is located in the eponymous district of the municipality of Werdum in East Frisia. It is the only surviving chieftain's castle in Harlingerland and the oldest preserved secular building in East Frisia. Its most famous resident was Ulrich von Werdum (* 1632; † 1681), author of the Series Familiae Werdumanae, a house and family chronicle.

According to a legend, the castle was built in 1191 by the inhabitants of the surrounding villages for protection against wandering Normans. Historical sources, however, report that Reent the Elder (Olde Reent) built the castle before 1420. The building fabric preserved today is dated to 1460 after dendrochronological studies and extensive archival research.

Initially, the complex consisted only of a stone house. The von Werdum family had the castle converted into a three-wing complex with defensive towers and surrounded by a moat in the following centuries. The entrance was located in the south.

There are traditions that state that the castle was besieged by the Mansfelders during the Thirty Years' War. The besieged were to be forced to surrender the castle by starvation. But the Werdumers resorted to a trick and showed their last ham with a pole from the chimney. Thereupon the Mansfelders withdrew, believing that there was still enough food in the castle.

Presumably from the 17th century onwards, the castle declined into an agricultural estate. At the beginning of the 18th century, the owners had the residential tower demolished. Today, the privately owned castle is inhabited and has been open to visitors since summer 2009.