Brokeloh Manor

Brokeloh is first mentioned in a document from the Loccum Monastery in 1277.

Brokeloh can be considered part of the ancestral seat of the Barons von Münchhausen, which was located on the Haarberg between the present-day towns of Rehburg and Winzlar, and from which the well-known Münchhausen family derives its name. The lineage first appears in documents in 1183 with dominus Rembertus, pater Gyselheri de Monechusen, with whom the family line also begins. The name is derived from the nearby Cistercian monastery of Loccum, founded in 1163, whose guard was the first knights there as ministerials. This "Villa Monickhusen" is mentioned for the last time as an inhabited settlement in 1335. Presumably due to wartime destruction, it soon became desolate. The Münchhausen family did not rebuild this site, but Clamor v. Münchhausen erected a moated castle in Brokeloh in 1545 – using stones from the castle ruins – on the associated lands, where he felt safe from the dangers of a military campaign in a difficult-to-access location in the moor. His son Erich-Hans completed the building around 1600 as a four-winged complex, but went bankrupt two years later and had to sell the property. Long-standing lawsuits (including with the Loccum Monastery) had devoured his money.

The buyer was Colonel Otto Plato von Helversen, who was enfeoffed with the estate in 1616. In the middle of the 17th century, it passed by inheritance to the related family v. Roth, and from them in 1725 to Colonel Dietrich August v. Adelebsen. However, he soon parted with this property again and found a buyer in 1734 in the bailiff Christian Eberhard Niemeyer, who ushered in an era for Brokeloh Castle that continues to this day: Although the estate belonged to several descendants in ideal shares for a time, in 1858 Friedrich August Wilhelm Niemeyer was able to unite it in his hand through inheritance and purchase. The current owner Carsten Niemeyer inherited the estate from his grandfather Erich Niemeyer in 1982. Since 1986, Carsten Niemeyer and his family have managed the estate, which was previously leased.