Heinsberg Castle (Ruin)

Heinsberg Castle is a castle ruin on the Burgberg (Castle Hill) in the North Rhine-Westphalian district town of Heinsberg (Kirchberg 7).

The "Burgberg/Kirchberg" area is the largest surviving motte in the Rhineland. A natural spur of land rising at the edge of the Rur valley was divided by two excavations into the Burgberg and the Kirchberg. The end of the spur, i.e. today's Burgberg, was probably significantly raised. In the 9th century, the Lords of Heinsberg built their seat, a perimeter house castle, on the Burgberg. An artificially created moat separated the main castle from the outer bailey, today's Kirchberg, on whose terrain the parish and later collegiate church of St. Gangolf was later built. In the 12th century, the Burgberg received mighty surrounding walls.

After the Lordship of Heinsberg fell to the Duchy of Jülich through marriage and inheritance, the castle became the seat of the ducal Jülich bailiff from 1484. In 1543, imperial troops captured Heinsberg in the Third Guelders War of Succession and destroyed parts of the city.

The castle may have been destroyed by French troops in the so-called predatory wars of Louis XIV at the end of the 17th century; however, there is no written evidence for this.

Of the former castle complex, now an archaeological monument, significant but, compared to the original construction, only minor remains of walls are preserved, as well as remains of the city wall and later bastioned fortifications from the time of the rule of the Dukes of Jülich.