Burg Erprath

Burg Erprath stands in Weckhoven, a village in the Rhein-Kreis Neuss of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is the ruined remains of a motte castle built where the Gillbach stream meets the Erft river. The site lies about 850 metres west of St. Paulus church in Weckhoven. The ruins are cared for today by the local heritage society. Archaeologists examined the site in 1984 and found Roman spolia reused in the medieval masonry. The castle belonged first to the Erprath family in the 13th century. After their line died out in the 14th century it passed to the counts of Virneburg. In 1405 Ruprecht of Virneburg sold it to the archbishop of Cologne, who made it a regional stronghold. During the Cologne War of 1586 the fortress was destroyed. An engraving by Abraham and Frans Hogenberg from 1585 shows it garrisoned by Saxon troops just before its fall. Visitors see a low, grassy motte four metres high with brick and tufa fragments of the former keep. The keep measured 6.9 by 7.7 metres and had walls nearly a metre thick. A short stretch of the old moat survives on the south-east side, now marshy ground. Beyond the motte, a low plateau once held the outer ward, about twenty metres away. The plateau drops in terraces toward the Erft and the Gillbach, giving views across the river valley.