Wachendorf Castle

Wachendorf Castle is located in the municipality of Wachendorf, which belongs to the town of Mechernich in the Euskirchen district of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The castle took on its current form around 1780. In 1883, it was last extended or rebuilt following the model of a maison de plaisance. During these renovation measures, the representative main staircase and spacious halls were created. Today, the building is an unusually large three-story manor house with around 60 rooms, a high mansard roof, and a six-story central tower, partly surrounded by the remains of a formerly impressive fortification with ramparts and moats.

Wachendorf was first mentioned in 1190 as a bailiwick. On the site of Wachendorf Castle stood a knight's seat with a keep-like tower, originally with a late Gothic spire. This keep is preserved as a central risalit in the castle, now with a mansard roof. At least the lower floors of the central tower and significant wall sections of the northwestern half of the manor house date from the medieval castle.

In the early 16th century, the then castle came into the possession of the noble family Palandt through marriage. Johann von Palandt was one of the most important knights of the Jülich dominion. In 1628, witch trials under the lord of the castle Marsilius III von Palandt led to the death of 16 people. In 1780, the castle was acquired by the Bavarian Major General Adolph Freiherr von Ritz. Through the Euskirchen district administrator Johann Peter Schroeder, the estate and lands came to Freiherr Solemacher-Antweiler in 1877, who had the castle rebuilt into its current form. His son sold the property to Paul von Mallinckrodt in 1896. The castle is now private property of his descendants, the von Blumencron family. It serves, among other things, as a wedding venue for the Mechernich registry office and as a Zen temple.