Battenbergturm Castle

The Battenberg Tower is a late medieval residential tower in Haldern, a district of Rees in the Kleve district of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located northeast of Haldern, directly next to a farm, and is a rare example of a lightly fortified residential tower in the Rhineland.

The Buschkampshof, next to which the Battenberg Tower stands, was first mentioned in 1377. In 1494, Duke Johann II of Kleve enfeoffed the armored knight Amelongh von Escharden with the farm. Amelongh made a career, becoming a court messenger in 1494 and a judge in Rees and Aspel in 1498. He is probably the builder of the tower, which was erected at the beginning of the 16th century. The tower probably owes its name to the builder's office: Batenberg is the tower (Old German Berg) of the messenger (Bote). According to an inscription inserted in glazed bricks, the tower was built in 1506. Originally, the complex was intended to include at least one more building, as suggested by the remnants of the moat and traces for the connection of high walls on the north and west sides. However, these buildings were never erected.

In 1639, the property was still referred to as a knight's seat, but no longer in 1674. In 1676 and definitively in 1681, the Buschkampshof came into the possession of the von Wittenhorst-Sonsfeld family, who also laid out an avenue from their park belonging to Sonsfeld Castle, aligned with the Battenberg Tower. After the tower was used as a granary and stable in later centuries, it fell into disrepair until it was leased by the Haldern local history association in 1984 and exemplarily renovated by 1993. Since then, the tower has been the seat of the Haldern local history association and can be visited in summer on the first Sunday of each month.