Schmitthausen Castle

Haus Schmithausen is a small castle built as a country estate in the architectural style of Dutch Classicism. It consists of a two-story central pavilion, whose bell-shaped curved roof is topped by an observation balcony, a so-called belvedere. Short, single-story side wings with mansard roofs adjoin both sides of the central building. The entire building is illuminated by large rectangular windows.

The former garden side – now facing the street – has a flat central risalit crowned by a triangular gable. On the upper floor, there is a small balcony from the 19th century. The courtyard-side facade of the central pavilion is structured by three steep blind niches, the middle of which frames the simple portal and the staircase window above it.

Inside the manor house, the staircase and the so-called garden hall on the ground floor are still preserved in their original Rococo forms.

The roots of the current castle building lie in a two-part moated castle at the same location, which was first mentioned in a document in 1442 on the occasion of an inheritance division. The castle took its name from the village of Smithuysen, about 400 meters away, which was an important trading post on the present-day Altrhein as early as the 11th century. However, it lost its commercial importance when the Rhine arm silted up between 1289 and 1300, and the Rhine toll was consequently moved to Emmerich in 1318.

The 15th-century moated castle was a two-part complex. A wooden bridge led over the moat to a gate tower, which, together with other buildings, enclosed a castle courtyard. The complex was granted as a fief by the Dukes of Kleve and their successors, the Electors of Brandenburg, to various landed gentry over the centuries. An engraving by Jan de Beijer shows the castle as it looked in 1744.

The builder of the current building, erected around 1770, was the director of the Prussian War and Domain Chamber, Hans Christian von der Meyen. The architect remains unknown to this day but probably came from the Netherlands. Von der Meyen sold the manor house even before its completion to the Kleve Privy Councillor Casimir Bilgen, who probably had the garden hall painted.

From 1935, Haus Schmithausen served as an agricultural school, then briefly as a primary school at the beginning of World War II. Since 1975, it housed the media center of the District of Kleve. After extensive renovation, Haus Schmithausen has been the seat of the Euregio Rhein-Waal, an association for the promotion of German-Dutch cooperation, since 1993. A modern conference hall for meetings was built on the castle grounds starting in September 2004.

Between 2003 and 2006, the District of Kleve again carried out extensive renovation measures on the building, including stabilizing the partially sunken foundations and preventing the listed house from falling apart.