Ahrenthal Castle

Around 1330/31, Ahrenthal Castle was built as a moated castle on allodial property and first documented in 1331 as Bovendorf, when Rolman I von Sinzig pledged the complex to Archbishop Heinrich II von Virneburg of Cologne as a fief. Emperor Ludwig IV permitted its expansion in 1336 with an outer bailey, drawbridge, and defensive wall. The name changed to Ahrendahl, and the lords of the castle subsequently named themselves after this possession. After the extinction of the Lords of Sinzig zu Ahrendahl in 1512, the complex passed entirely to the von Wiltberg family, who replaced the late medieval residential tower with a three-winged Renaissance building in the 16th century. After the extinction of the Wiltbergs in 1621, ownership changed several times and passed to the Barons von Hillesheim in 1641.