Redinghoven Castle (Friesheim)

The estate of the former moated castle Redinghoven in Friesheim was first mentioned in a document in 1399. Redinghoven is today the best-preserved castle complex in the village.

Friesheim lies in the fertile valley basin of the Rotbach stream. The intensive agriculture always practiced there yielded good returns and thus an excellent profit for the secular and spiritual landlords. This led to a concentration of the Friesheim lordship at an early stage, which developed into a court association. Count Emundus von Friesheim, Gau Count of Kölngau, bequeathed his extensive property in Friesheim to the Cologne Cathedral Chapter. From this property, the Cathedral Provost granted castles and estates as fiefs. One of these properties is the moated castle Redinghoven.

Location and Fortifications

The Rotbach stream, which originates in the Eifel and flows through Friesheim on its way to the Erft, offered a protective function to many fortified places or castles in the past with its abundant water supply. The protective moats fed by its water surrounded large and small villages and filled the moats of the moated castles, which were equipped with drawbridges. Even the less affluent inhabitants of the village of Friesheim, in whose district several fortified castles and farms stood, possessed a fortification of moats and dense hedges.

Lords of Redinghoven

The predecessor of Redinghoven Castle was the castle of Wieland Braun, called Braunsgut. It was surrounded by moats, located outside the village of Friesheim in Niederwig (..the path that goes to the stream) and was a fief of the Cologne Cathedral Provost. It was first mentioned in 1399 on the occasion of a description of the estates of Engelbert von Friesheim, whose homestead bordered on Brauns Weiher.

After Wieland Braun's death, the castle was sold in 1466 to Johann Beissel von Gymnich, who in turn sold it to the Friesheim Schultheiß Heinrich von Meller. His daughter Iburg von Meller, who was married to Peter Wolff von Metternich, inherited the castle, which then remained in the family's possession for several generations.

At the end of the 16th century, ownership changed again. Through marriage, the castle with its associated lands came into the possession of Hans Philipp von Hoheneck in 1599 as a noble knight's seat (adliger Seeß), who had married Anna Wolff von Metternich.

In 1602, the estate expanded through a considerable acquisition. In a purchase agreement between Thomas von Wesel (previously the feudal lord of the estate) and Hans Philipp von Hoheneck, Cathedral Provost Ferdinand von Bayern confirmed that Thomas von Wesel had declared that he had sold the cathedral provost's feudal estate in Friesheim, the Steprather Hof, which was currently (1591) burned down by the "static cavalry" in the ground, to Philipp von Hoheneck and his wife Anna Wolff von Metternich.

After several changes, the property passed in 1670 to the Cologne family Wilhelm von der Juden. Wilhelm, like his ancestor Franz Konstantin von der Juden, was repeatedly Mayor of the Free Imperial City of Cologne. His son, Franz Konstantin (* 1668 + June 9, 1735), bequeathed the property to his wife Margarethe, née von Wymar, who married Baron von Redinghoven in 1736, after whom the castle is named today.

In her will of 1761, Anna Margarethe, widow von Redinghoven, née von Wymar, stipulated that she appointed her brother Franz Kaspar von Wymar, Mayor of Cologne, as the sole heir of her estates. In 1764, the feudal estate then passed for a short time to Franz Kaspar von Wymar, who died in 1772. Apparently, the estate remained in the family. In 1786, Johann Alexander Konstantin von Wymar was again enfeoffed with the Braunsgut and the Steprathsgut in Friesheim, as he had been enfeoffed on May 11, 1779.

During the French period, Redinghoven Castle became the property of Franz Josef Litz in 1801. The families Stryck, Wolfgarten, and Leser became subsequent owners.