Dreckburg Castle (Bad Salzkotten)

Dreckburg Castle (Dreck=Moor) is a moated tower castle on the eastern outskirts of the core town of Salzkotten in the Paderborn district of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The castle was presumably built between 1347 and 1357 by the Paderborn cathedral provost Otto von Bentheim and, after its completion, granted as a fief to the Lords of Drewer.

The Paderborn bishops, who were also territorial lords, built the Dreckburg on the western edge of the diocese, in addition to the Oldenburg near Marienmünster and Lichtenau Castle, to secure their territory and control the border with Electoral Cologne and the passing Hellweg.

The castle was first mentioned in a document in 1386 as "Drecborgh" in the fief of cathedral provost Volmar von Brenken, who presumably had the castle courtyard, which previously consisted only of a residential tower with a high entrance (keep), surrounded by a ring wall and had an outer bailey built.

Dreckburg Castle survived the Soest Feud in 1444 unscathed, passed to the Lords of Oeynhausen in the same year, to the von Hörde family in 1462, and in 1516, Knight Franz Anton von Hörde had a second moat dug at a great distance around the castle.

After the castle had survived the Thirty Years' War unscathed, it came into the possession of Johann Wilhelm von Schilder in 1676, who had parts of the castle's ring walls demolished.

In 1729, the Osnabrück canon Anton von der Arseburg acquired the castle and had it rebuilt until 1762, which gave it its current appearance by adding two baroque wings. His nephew Friedrich Wilhelm von Westfalen inherited Dreckburg in 1782, which then later functioned as a manor farm from 1802.

From 1896, the leased castle with its estate remained under the administration of the Counts of Westfalen until the city of Salzkotten acquired the castle in 2000 and sold it to Erhard Christiani in 2002, who uses it privately.