Schlenderhan Castle (Ichendorf)

Schloss Schlenderhahn is a country estate and manor farm in Quadrath-Ichendorf, which belongs to the city of Bergheim in the Rhein-Erft-Kreis. The castle is best known for the Schlenderhan stud farm located there.

Slenderhagen was first mentioned in 1028, when Count Palatine Erenfried gifted the estate to the newly founded Brauweiler Abbey. The donation was confirmed in 1051 by Archbishop Pilgrim, mentioning the estate's name. During the division of the Villewald forest in 1258, the estate passed to Kornelimünster Abbey, which granted it as a fief. In 1271, a knightly family named after the estate first appeared in documents. In 1527, the property came into the possession of the Raitz von Frentz family through the marriage of the heiress Maria to Winand (the neighboring Schloss Frens also came into the possession of the Cologne Raitz family around this time). In the 17th century, the later famous cavalry general of the Thirty Years' War, Jan von Werth, whose daughter later married the estate owner, served on the farm. Having become even wealthier, the family was elevated to the status of Imperial Barons in 1650. When the last of this family, Adolf Carl Hubert Freiherr Raitz von Frentz, who was the long-serving district administrator of the Bergheim district, died without descendants in 1867, the wealthy Cologne banker Simon von Oppenheim acquired the estate, also with regard to the lignite deposits there in the Rhenish lignite mining area. In the same year, he was ennobled. His son Eduard then founded the stud farm, today the oldest and most important private German racing stable.