Engelsburg Castle (Recklinghausen)

The Engelsburg in Recklinghausen is a Baroque, horseshoe-shaped residential building from the early 18th century. The Engelsburg is located in the west of Recklinghausen's old town and borders the Herzogswall with the only preserved part of the medieval city wall.

Residence of Judge Münch

The Electorate of Cologne's governor and judge Clamor Constantin Münch had a residence built around 1701. The building consisted of a manor house and an adjoining freestanding economic wing to the east. In the corner of the wings stood a rectangular tower with a Welsch dome. The entrance of the two-story manor house was placed in the middle of the eleven window axes. The symmetrical building, with its round-arched portal flanked by pilasters and rosettes and a broken pediment above, shows elements of Italian Renaissance. The round arch itself bears the inscribed inscription "ANTE FORES PATRIS SUNT INSCULPTA SEQENTES SPARTAM NANCTI HANC ADORANT" ("The sculpture freed before the father's door is adorned by the successors upon obtaining the inheritance"). The highlighted letters MDCCI refer to the year of construction, 1701.

In 1712, Münch bought a part of the medieval city wall. He had the southern watchtower, Stephansturm, integrated into the west wing, which was built until 1715. The now three-winged complex enclosed a rectangular inner courtyard. To Augustinessenstraße in the south, a brick wall closed it off, and the access was formed by a round-arched sandstone portal with a stone cross bearing the inscription "In hoc signo vinces" ("Under this sign you will conquer"). Behind the manor house, a garden stretched along the old city wall to the second watchtower.

Bissinghus and Arenberg Administrative Seat

When Clamor Constantin Münch died in 1751, his granddaughter, Catharina Biesten (née Münch), inherited the Engelsburg. After her husband, Privy Councillor Biesten, the Engelsburg was called Bissinghus. In 1795, a part of the government college, which had fled from Bonn after the Cannonade of Valmy, was quartered in the Engelsburg. In 1802, Duke Ludwig-Engelbert von Arenberg established his administrative seat in the Engelsburg. After the owner Catharina Biesten died on October 28, 1818, the heirs sold the property on May 27, 1819, for 3,300 Reichsthaler to the Duke's son, Prosper-Ludwig von Arenberg. He himself became Duke a few months later and had the upper floor of the west wing converted into the ducal General Domain Inspectorate. From 1820, the family of the Arenberg administrator, Court Chamber Councillor Landschütz, inhabited parts of the Engelsburg; its last resident was Court Chamber President Ernst Russell, who moved out in 1895.

Engelsburg Casino

The ducal administration also moved to Düsseldorf, and the Engelsburg was sold on March 26, 1904, to the Engelsburg Society. This casino society was founded by citizens of Recklinghausen to enable cultural events and sporting activities for the upper class in the Engelsburg. The east wing and the rectangular tower of the manor house were demolished. In their place, a new building with a concert hall and a bowling alley was erected, and a tennis court was laid out in the garden.

From January 13, 1923, French troops occupied the Engelsburg as part of the Ruhr occupation. When they withdrew on July 20, 1925, large parts of the interior were destroyed. In July 1939, the Vestisches Archiv moved into the Stephansturm and parts of the west wing. In 1945, English occupiers confiscated the Engelsburg.

On July 10, 1948, the Casino-Gesellschaft Recklinghausen was founded as the successor to the Engelsburg Society, which had been dissolved in 1945. It organized readings by the Literary Society and the Klausener-Bund, lectures by the Adult Education Center and the Association for Local and Regional History, as well as concerts. After some renovations, the municipal public library, the foreign institute Die Brücke, and again the Vestisches Archiv moved into rooms in the Engelsburg.

Hotel Engelsburg

Around 1950, the Casino-Gesellschaft Recklinghausen was transferred to Engelsburg Haus- und Grundbesitz GmbH. The industrialists Kufus and Still from Recklinghausen and Schweisfurth from Herten planned to build a luxury hotel in the Engelsburg; approval was granted in 1952. In the 1950s, the buildings were then fundamentally renovated. In 1973, the Parkhotel Die Engelsburg was opened. On November 24, 1982, the Engelsburg was placed under monument protection.

In 1990, the city of Recklinghausen became the owner of the Engelsburg and sold the building on July 5, 1993, to the Recklinghausen entrepreneur Theo Feldmann. The garden plot was sold to the Recklinghausen entrepreneur Hugo Ibing, who resold it to Theo Feldmann in 1994.

He restored the Engelsburg and built a hotel extension and condominiums in part of the park.

In January 1995, the Best Western-Parkhotel Engelsburg was opened with a three-story suite in the Stephansturm.