Eringerfeld Castle

Eringerfeld Castle is located in the town of Eringerfeld in East Westphalia. It was built in 1676 as a Baroque castle and served as the residence of the Westphalian noble family von Hörde. Today, the building houses a hotel with 56 rooms, as well as meeting and conference facilities.

After a fire in 1660 destroyed parts of the old castle or manor house, the canons Johann Gottfried and Rhabanus Christoph v. Hörde commissioned the new construction of the castle. The Baroque castle was subsequently built between 1676 and 1699 by the architect Ambrosius von Oelde and the master builder Jobst Scheck from Störmede. In the meantime, after the death of Baron Franz Lodolf Joseph von Hörde in 1781, ownership of the castle passed to the Decken and Ketteler families. The diplomat Wilhelm Freiherr von Ketteler was born there in 1906.

During the National Socialist era, Dutch missionaries were forcibly quartered there. From 1945, the estate stood empty and was left to decay. From 1950 to 1964, the Jesuits maintained a novitiate in the castle. After Wilfried and Berna Kirchner purchased the castle in 1964, it was in great need of renovation, but the thick stone walls and some remaining pieces of furniture, which were too heavy to remove from the castle, were in a condition worth preserving. In the years after the Kirchner family moved in, the castle was renovated for several million Deutschmarks.

From 1965 to 1987, the castle and the surrounding newly constructed buildings housed a large boarding school, which at the time was the largest boarding school in Germany. After the boarding school ceased operations, the castle was once again extensively renovated and the castle garden was restored to its original state. Since then, the castle has housed a hotel operation.

From 2000 to 2005, a school for gifted children was operated in the rooms of the former boarding school.