Kloster Eppinghoven

Kloster Eppinghoven stands south of Neuss-Holzheim beside the River Erft. Founded around 1214 as a Cistercian convent named Mariensaal, it moved to Eppinghoven in 1231 after a gift of land from the Neuss couple Sibert and Gisela. The nuns lived under the authority of Kamp Abbey until the 19th century. In 1650 it became an aristocratic collegiate foundation for noble ladies. After French occupation in 1794–95 the community could not meet rising demands and the Stift was dissolved in 1802.

The remaining buildings show layers from the 13th to the 18th centuries. The east wing, rebuilt in 1695 by Abbess Agnes Dorothea Elisabeth von Landsberg, is a two-storey brick structure with an oak roof and vaulted cellars. Traces of the 1331 church were found in 2009 behind the south wing; it measured over thirty metres long and eight wide, with a wooden nuns’ gallery. The 1710 gatehouse bears the coat of arms of Abbess Anna Margaretha von Randerath and a Madonna relief above its round arch.

Visitors walk past the gatehouse into the farmyard. The north wing survives as a lime-washed brick barn with pointed openings and medieval tufa wall remnants. The 1768 south wing has a cross-ribbed room and inscription stone. Nearby stands a polygonal dovecote with a curved roof, and a 1765 mill with later turbine and wooden silos. The complex is framed by 18th-century stables and storage buildings, giving a quiet picture of the former Stift’s domestic life.