Efferen Castle

Efferen Castle, located in the Efferen district of the city of Hürth, is one of the most historically significant castles in the Cologne area. Its medieval gate tower, a landmark of Efferen, is the oldest building in the city.

The former moated castle is situated directly on the eastern edge of the now culverted Duffesbach, from which it once fed its moat, and the Bachstraße leading along the stream towards Cologne. The Duffesbach originated from and alongside the decaying Roman Eifel aqueduct to Roman Cologne, whose pillar foundations were and still are found in the ground along the stream. It is possible that spolia from the aqueduct were used for the castle's foundations. The former main road (today Ritter- and Kaulardstraße) connects this location to the present-day Luxemburger Straße/B 265 (formerly Agrippa-Straße Cologne–Trier, Zülpicher- or Trierer Straße), which has existed since Roman times. The castle courtyard was formerly surrounded by seven other farmsteads, some of which were even larger than the castle estate. The village also clustered around the stream and this triangle, extending only slightly beyond it.

The origin of the first castle complex is still completely unknown. The landlady in Efferen was the convent of St. Maria im Kapitol, founded around 696 by Queen Plectrudis, the widow of Pippin I, who received the royal estate for its foundation and endowment. However, the charter is lost. The Counts of Jülich were appointed as bailiffs over the abbey and thus also over the Frohnhof, who enfeoffed Cologne nobles with the estate. The Cologne Overstolzen are documented as the first noble family of the castle at the end of the 14th century, later calling themselves Overstolz von Efferen and then simply von Efferen, also a sign of the castle's importance. The people of Cologne, together with the Jülichers, fortified the castle in 1391/93 as an outpost against the claims to power of the Archbishop of Cologne, Friedrich III von Saarwerden. The gate tower probably dates from this period. A landscape drawing by the Walloon artist Renier Roidkin († 1741) still shows other towers of the former complex. The subsequent owners, who acquired the castle through inheritance or purchase, are as follows:

• In 1439, the Cologne mayor Rüttgers von der Weyden was enfeoffed with the estate, which he
• sold to Johann Rauftesch in 1461.
• Johann von Diepenbroich, his son, was properly enfeoffed with the estate in 1477.
• From 1535 to 1635, the respected Cologne patrician family Orsbeck owned the castle.
• For two centuries, the Barons von Bourtscheid followed until 1836.
• Until 1870, the Counts von Schaesberg owned the castle. They then sold it to
• the Counts von Fürstenberg-Stammheim from Bonn, who sold it to their tenant in 1894,
• Matthias Koch. His descendants (today Schmitt) are still in possession of the property.

Many of these names can be found as street names around the castle.

In 1769, Carl Franz von Bourscheidt, through the master builder Christian Birkenhus - a small street was also named after him - rebuilt the castle on its old foundations into a "contemporary" Baroque complex. The master builder's name is on a stone at the former bridge.