Borlinghausen Castle

In the year 1338, the Knights of Spiegel left their ancestral castle on the Desenberg near Warburg and settled in Borlinghausen.
 
Since the beginning of the 15th century, the village, castle, and church were owned by the von Spiegel zu Peckelsheim family. Werner and Katharina von Spiegel had the Weser Renaissance castle built in the second half of the 16th century. In 1839, Marie Louise Freifrau von Elmendorff-Borlinghausen, as the last family member of the von Spiegel line in Borlinghausen, sold the castle with the estate to the banker Bierbaum from Braunschweig. After several changes of ownership in the further course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the castle and estate buildings came into the possession of Count Franz von Stolberg-Stolberg from Westheim and the wife of Baron von Fürstenberg from Körtlinghausen, among others. In 1926, Reichsfreiherr von Weichs zur Wenne finally acquired the estate. His descendants still live in the castle today.

The moated castle consists of a south and west wing and an octagonal stair tower on the courtyard side. In 1587, the complex was completed in the Weser Renaissance style. Older building fabric from the late Gothic period was probably also used during the construction of the castle. The north gable dates from the early 17th century. The south wing was altered in the Baroque style in the 18th century and rebuilt with Neo-Renaissance style elements at the end of the 19th century and equipped with a south and east gable.