Gugenpot Castle

Hugenpot Castle, located in the German city of Essen and surrounded on all sides by water, is first mentioned in documents of 778 as the possession of Charlemagne. Later, the castle belonged to the Abbey of Verdun. From 1314 to 1831, the castle was owned by the family of Knight Fletzke von Hugenpot, after whom it was named. Several times the castle was destroyed during the siege, burned, in 1509 it was moved about 200 meters from its original position, and in 1647 - completely rebuilt.

The buildings that can be seen today were erected here in the middle of the XIX century in the Neo-Renaissance style under Baron Leopold von Furstenberg, whose descendants the castle belongs to the present day. The Lord’s House is a rectangular detached building, with two powerful towers on the north side, which end with lanterns with weather vanes. The interior of the castle has been preserved almost completely. In the premises of the main lord's house you can see three fireplaces of the Renaissance with sandstone bas-reliefs of 1560-1578 and a black Baroque staircase of marble. Also on the territory of the castle complex there is a pre-castle, consisting of two buildings south of the master's house, a castle chapel and a one-storey external pre-castle, built on the site of a fortress structure of the XVI century.

The Hugenpot Castle, which has been under the protection of the German Ministry of Culture since 1985, now houses a hotel.