Wülmersen Castle

Wülmersen (also known as Gut Wülmersen or Wasserschloss Wülmersen) is a former agricultural estate and belongs to the small town of Trendelburg in the district of Kassel in Hesse (Germany). Located about 4 km (as the crow flies) north of the Trendelburg town center at the confluence of the Holzape flowing in from the southeast and the Diemel coming from the southwest, it is about 500 m east of the section of the B 83 leading north from Deisel (a district of Trendelburg) to Helmarshausen (a district of Bad Karlshafen). It lies at approximately.

The village of Wülmersen was first mentioned in a document in 1108 as Wilmeressen, when its owner, the Bishop of Paderborn, gifted it to Helmarshausen Monastery, which operated it as a demesne for over 200 years. In 1316, the knight Johann von Stockhausen married Gertrud von Markessen, the heiress of Wülmersen. The Knights of Stockhausen acquired the fief in 1330 and held it until 1848 (conversion of landgravial fiefs into private property). The family managed it themselves until 1844, after which it was leased as a knight's estate.

The southeast side of the Wülmersen estate was surrounded by a moat from the beginning of the 18th to the end of the 19th century; the term Wasserschloss Wülmersen (water castle Wülmersen) has been preserved to this day. Between 1951 and 1956, the estate was sold to the settlement company "Hessische Heimat," which divided the land and built new farmsteads for displaced families. The medieval building ensemble was abandoned unused and declared ownerless; 30 years of vacancy led to a rapid decay of the medieval buildings.

In 1987, the association Aus- und Fortbildungsverbund (AuF) im Landkreis Kassel e.V. acquired the complex, which by then consisted almost entirely of rubble heaps. The association's goal of enabling unemployed young people to gain professional qualifications in the field of monument preservation could be ideally implemented here. After setting up training workshops, the young people, under the guidance of experienced craftsmen, began securing the ruin and rebuilding individual buildings and parts of buildings.

By 1995, the reconstruction of the Wasserschloss had progressed to such an extent that the former farm buildings with the former orchard as a tent meadow were available as group accommodation for self-caterers. The association received the Hessian Prize for Monument Protection in 1989 and the German Prize for Monument Protection in 2000. In 2005, the district of Kassel, with its own enterprise "Jugend- und Freizeiteinrichtungen" (Youth and Leisure Facilities), took over Wasserschloss Wülmersen.

Historic Place Names

Over the centuries, the place name changed several times - Wylmerssen, (1330), (Helmarshausen Monastery); Wilmarsen, (1386), (Helmarshausen Monastery); Wulmersen, (1442), (UA Helmarshausen)