Opherdicke Castle

Haus Opherdicke (pronounced: Op-Herdicke) is a moated castle in the Holzwickede district of Opherdicke. The house is located east of the village center of Opherdicke on the ridge of the Ardey Mountains with a view south into the Ruhr valley.

The house was first mentioned in 1176. In that year, Heinrich von Herreke from the Dortmund noble family pledged his possession as a fief to the Archbishop of Cologne, who, after Heinrich's death, granted it to the noble lords of Grafschaft. This family, who remained in possession of Haus Opherdicke until 1573, in turn enfeoffed a ministerial family with the estate, who adopted the name Herreke. After the Gruwel and Lappe families became owners as heirs of the Herreke through marriage in the 15th century, the estate passed around 1500 to the Kamener burgmann family von Fresendorf, from whom it was acquired by purchase in 1719 by the von Hane zu Werve. In 1792, the Werler Erbsälzer Franz Caspar von Lilien inherited the estate, which in 1906 his grandson of the same name bequeathed to his niece Eugenie Countess Berghe von Trips, née von Fürstenberg. After parts of the estate had already been sold in 1912, the remaining estate with the house was sold in 1918 to Theodor Regenbogen, from whose heirs the Unna district acquired the house in 1980.

From 1683 to 1687, the old moated castle was rebuilt and received its present appearance. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the farm and outbuildings were constructed, which still enclose the inner courtyard in their unchanged form. The castle park, in the form of an English garden, is believed by local historian Reinhold Stirnberg to have been designed by Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe.

On April 30, 2011, the Unna district reopened Haus Opherdicke after extensive renovation. Art exhibitions, particularly featuring works from the Frank Brabant collection, are now on display in some of the house's exhibition and gallery rooms.