Lauvenburg Castle

Lauvenburg is located on the southern outskirts of Nemmenich, a district of Zülpich in the Euskirchen district, North Rhine-Westphalia.

In 1356, a Henz von Loewenberg (Lauvenburg) appears in a sheriff's protocol, who, as a local nobleman, certainly named himself after his castle residence. The moated castle was then an open house of the Duke of Jülich. A robber knight, whose name is not known, lived in the castle.

Until 1603, the Lords of Dreiborn were the landowners of Lauvenburg. After that, it was the Dukes of Jülich. They were represented by the bailiff of Nideggen. The Codex Welser lists a Johann Heinrich Cramer von Clauspruch as owner in 1723. From 1760 to 1794, the French emigrant Count Latour was the owner. The physician Johann Wilhelm Krüppel then leased it from the French domain administration. In 1808, he bought the castle. Krüppel later sold it to the Cologne broker Winand Guffani, who sold it in 1860 to the farmer Bergerhausen for 40,000 Thalers. His heirs, the Wasserburger family, still own the castle.

The property, built in the form of a classic two-part moated castle, is very well preserved. The moats are supplied with water by the mill stream fed by the Rotbach. The almost square castle island is only built on the eastern side. The rest of the island consists of a mighty orchard. In the southeastern corner, separated by an angled moat, stands the manor house. It is a late Gothic brick building. The gatehouse seems to have belonged to the old castle. The outer bailey consists of two long brick tracts and a crenellated wall on the narrow side, in which the pointed arch gate forms the access to the complex. It is possible via a stone bridge that replaced the old wooden bridge. The entire outer bailey was renewed after a fire in 1868.

The castle was entered into the monument list of the city of Zülpich on September 24, 1981, under number 13.