Wildenburg

The Wildenburg stands in Bürvenich, a district of Zülpich in the Euskirchen district of North Rhine-Westphalia. It began as an estate house for the Dukes of Jülich and never became the seat of a knightly family. The building sits near the route of the old Roman road from Cologne to Reims, suggesting a late Roman origin. The Wildenburg passed from local nobles to the Counts of Maubach and then to the Counts of Jülich. In the 12th century it protected a nearby Cistercian monastery until 1764. After a fire at the monastery in 1619, the abbess Catharina von Wevorden rebuilt it and adapted the Wildenburg in 1655. The last vogt, Carl Caspar Rudolph Trimborn, bought the estate in 1764 and gave it its present form. Visitors find a four-winged complex arranged around an inner courtyard. The main house is a two-storey stone building with a high roof, dating largely from the 17th century. A stone-walled garden lies to the south-west and a former orchard to the north-west. The stable retains a 1655 timber gallery that projects far beyond its walls. The Trimborn family still owns the Wildenburg today.