Burg Petkum

Burg Petkum was once the stronghold of a 15th-century East Frisian chieftain. It stands in the Emden district of Petkum, on a low rise beside the Ems. The first timber castle was built in the 1430s, but after a defeat by the Cirksena family it was torn down. A new brick hall-house replaced it around 1440, with walls nearly five metres high and a surrounding ditch. The chieftain Geerd van Petkum enlarged the hall in 1461, making it about thirty-five metres long. Inside the courtyard a well supplied water and outbuildings housed stores and workshops. The entire site measured thirty-five by thirty metres and was raised two and a half metres above the surrounding land. A single western gate gave entry to the enclosure. Today only the raised platform and the outline of the ditch remain. The spot overlooks the wide Ems, where barges still pass the old deich edge. A modern farmhouse now occupies the former rentmeister’s site, but visitors can still trace the vanished walls beneath the grass. The vanished fortress tells of the power struggles that once shaped this stretch of the North Sea coast.