To be privately owned
CastleRees-Haldern
Sonsfeld Castle
Sonsfeld Castle was a castle near Haldern, a district of Rees in the North Rhine-Westphalian district of Kleve.
The castle was located two kilometers southeast of Haldern, north of the Sonsfeld pastures. It was first mentioned in 1259. In 1368, it was owned by a Steven von Wittenhorst. Nothing is known from the following centuries. In 1666, the owner received Sonsfeld, including the farming communities of Helderloh, Wittenhorst, and Herken, as a lordship. In the first half of the 18th century, the castle was demolished, and a planned new building was not carried out.
In 1810, the property was partially sold to the Luyken family, who had a forester's house built in the forest north of the former castle in 1815. In 1863, this forester's house, as a successor to the vanished castle, gained the status of a manorial estate eligible for the Landtag. Around 1890, a new manor house was built on the site of the forester's house, which was converted in the neoclassical style in 1910. This building is now known as Sonsfeld Castle or the Blue House.
History+
The von Wittenhorst-Sonsfeld family played an important role during the reign of Frederick William I of Prussia. The former site of the old family castle is overgrown; only the remains of the moat are still visible. North of it, in the forest, the remains of a 50-hectare baroque garden can still be seen, including some avenues and remnants of two water basins. One avenue, the Turmallee (Tower Avenue), is aligned with the Battenberg Tower, which was also owned by the von Wittenhorst-Sonsfeld family towards the end of the 17th century.
The Blue House is privately inhabited and cannot be visited.
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Source: Wikipedia · Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Image: http://www.wehrbauten.de/thread.php?threadid=566&hilight=Borghees
This description draws on the facts documented in the linked Wikipedia article; Wikipedia content is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Wording and editing: Mobile History.
Location: 51.7637, 6.4732