Haus Baerl

Haus Baerl was a medieval fortified house in Duisburger Stadtteil Baerl, standing on a motte surrounded by a rampart and moat. The site measured thirty to forty metres across and held a tower-like wooden building with stone infill. A drawbridge gave the only access, and inside stood a well whose remains lasted until the early 19th century. The house belonged for centuries to the knights of Baerl, first recorded in 1234 as Conradus and Arnoldus de Barle. By 1732 it was described as a half-rotten timber-framed manor with tiled roof, garden and orchard covering about six morgen. After changing hands to the von Hafften, von Driesch and von Keller families, it was finally bought in 1784 by Caspar Anton von der Ruhr and broken up at the end of the 18th or start of the 19th century. Today the former motte is a protected archaeological monument. The last masonry and gate piers were removed around 1830 when the teacher Gottfried von der Thüsen bought the land. Nothing now rises above the ground, yet the site’s earthworks remain under protection.