Schloss Breill

Schloss Breill lies south of the B221 in open fields between Geilenkirchen and Übach-Palenberg, near the Hünshoven district of Geilenkirchen. It began as a medieval motte, then became a manor in the 15th and 16th centuries. The house was enlarged and altered from the 17th to 19th centuries until it was destroyed in the Second World War. After partial rebuilding, the site was placed under monument protection in 1983.

The estate passed through several noble families, including the von Breiloe and the Goltstein counts. In 1728 a large eastern courtyard was added, and in 1754 the house was remodelled by Johann Joseph Couven for the electoral governor Johann Ludwig Franz von Goltstein-Breill. The double moat was filled in and a landscaped park laid out. After the Goltstein line died out in 1882, the property went to the Failly-Goltstein family, who rebuilt only the south wing after 1945. A new building now stands on the old foundations.

Visitors enter along a 350-metre lime avenue that ends at a brick gatehouse. The surviving south wing is a late-baroque rectangle with a slate mansard roof and contrasting blue-stone dressings. Its entrance shows the 1754 alliance arms of Goltstein and Quadt. The four-sided 1728 Wirtschaftshof still stands with its rusticated arch and double-wedge pediment. Beyond it lies an enclosed formal garden with an 18th-century tower and a small pond whose island once held the first castle.