Imbsenburg

The Imbsenburg is a vanished motte-and-bailey castle near Paderborn-Wewer in North Rhine-Westphalia. Its remains sit on a low earthwork in Sammtholz, a wooded area west of the Wilhelmsburg estate. The site once formed part of the deserted medieval village of Oystinckhusen, traces of which still show in the surrounding fields. The castle passed from Stift Heerse to the von Brobeck family in the late Middle Ages. A gilded bronze fitting suggests the settlement began in the late eighth century. In 1608 Wilhelm von Krevet claimed his family had held the estate for generations. After the dissolution of Stift Heerse in 1810 the von Imbsen and von Brenken families briefly managed the woodland. The name Imbsenburg itself dates from this later period. Today the turf-covered mound stands about eight metres high and measures fifteen by twenty metres. A rectangular bailey once surrounded it, with banks and ditches still visible along the northern and western edges. A narrow stream and a small dam once made the north-west corner hard to reach. In that corner a cistern once held water for the garrison. The whole clearing is now part of the forest, where walkers can follow faint traces of the vanished village’s ridge-and-furrow fields.