Schloss Borbeck

Borbeck Castle is a Baroque moated castle in Essen's Borbeck district that served as the preferred residence of the princess-abbesses of the Essen Women's Abbey from the 14th century onward. The history of the site goes back to the 9th century, when a Frankish manorial estate was first mentioned. In the 13th century, Abbess Berta von Arnsberg bought the estate in order to build a permanent residence there, which was first referred to as a castle in the 14th century. The complex often served the abbey's canonesses as a refuge during political conflicts. While the Eighty Years' War largely destroyed the buildings in 1590, they were rebuilt under Abbess Elisabeth von Manderscheid-Blankenheim and expanded into a summer residence. The castle owes its present exterior mainly to the renovations carried out by Abbess Franziska Christine von Pfalz-Sulzbach in the first half of the 18th century, who had the building extended to the south and the large castle park laid out.

Architecturally, the complex consists of a three-story main building and a long, narrow outbuilding. The main building is surrounded by a wide moat that flows north into a castle pond. The northern section, with its square corner towers and curved gable, originally dates from the Renaissance but was later given a Baroque makeover. Above the entrance is the coat of arms of Princess-Abbess Franziska Christine, which symbolizes the abbesses' bishop-like power. A 13-meter-long stone bridge leads to the portal. To the northwest stands a neoclassical plastered building, erected in 1842 on the site of an old outer bailey and always used for farm and utility purposes. A medieval rubble-stone tower, one of the oldest surviving structures in Borbeck, is integrated into its northwest corner and once served as a watchtower and prison.

The castle is surrounded by a 42-hectare park in the English landscape style, which grew out of the 16th-century conversion of a beech forest. The park, considered one of the oldest in the Rhineland, is freely accessible today and offers winding paths that lead to the source of the Borbecke stream. In the eastern section you'll find the Dubois Arena, an open-air amphitheater-style venue used for events. Since the 1980s, Borbeck Castle has served as a cultural and community center. It houses the Borbeck registry office, the Folkwang music school, and parts of the adult education center. Inside the moated castle itself, a permanent exhibition covers the almost thousand-year history of the Essen Women's Abbey, complemented by furniture, tapestries, and an oil painting of the last abbess, Maria Kunigunde of Saxony.