Burg Nienborg

Burg Nienborg is in Heek, Germany, and it was built by Hermann II von Katzenelnbogen, Prince-Bishop of Münster.

The castle’s origins lie at the turn of the 13th century. A chronicle by Heinrich von Hövel gives the foundation year as 1198, and the site first appears in a document of 1203. By the mid-13th century the place-name is recorded as Nyenborch or Nienborch. Early speakers also called the fortress Novo Castro, literally “new castle,” and in the local Low German vernacular it was known as “up der nien borch.”

From its foundation the castle served the Prince-Bishopric of Münster as a fortified stronghold to protect the river and road traffic between Münster and Deventer. It grew into one of the most important episcopal fortifications in the region and came to host a formal company of castle retainers. This body included ministeriales and other service-men attached to the bishop’s household; they acted under a shared seal and swore an oath of service.

Strategic importance declined from the 15th century as trade and communications shifted. During the Spanish–Netherlands war the complex was destroyed in 1593. Reconstruction work took place around 1600, after which the site went into gradual decline during the 1600s. In 1765 parts judged unsafe were ordered taken down, and the institutional body of castle retainers, the Corpus Burgmannorum, was officially dissolved in 1812.

Ownership passed through several hands from the early 18th century. The castle became part of the Gut Haus Bevern estate and later transferred by Amalie von Reeden to Heinrich Wilhelm Droste zu Hülshoff; members of the Droste family used the place as a secondary residence. One principal residence known as the Hohes Haus has a core that dates to the 14th century, probably built around 1345 by Heidenreich von Sasse. That house was likely burned in the 1593 destruction and rebuilt about 1600 by the Torck family, and it underwent renovation in 1957–1966. In the 20th century the Hohes Haus served varied civic functions, including as a Hitler Youth home at the start of the Second World War, as the first Nienborg kindergarten in 1941, and after the war as a police station and housing for displaced people. The Hohes Haus later passed into ownership of Lodewyk von Bönninghausen and is now held by a Dutch family foundation of the von Bönninghausen family; part of the building is used as a café, and municipal plans envision new housing between that house and the main road.

Another former retainer’s court, Keppelborg, dates to the 15th or 16th century and moved by inheritance through the families von Sasse, von Münster, von Keppel (from about 1560) and von Heyden (from 1729). After extensive work it now operates as a guesthouse, and local testimony records that the property has passed down by inheritance for some seven centuries without being sold. The Langes Haus, also called Raesfelder Hof or Delwigsches Haus, bears a von Raesfeld coat of arms dated 1554, was altered in the 18th and 19th centuries, had its west stepped gable rebuilt in 1966, and following renovation has housed the North Rhine–Westphalia Music Academy since 1989.