Schloss Allner

Schloss Allner is a fifteenth-century castle in the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis of North Rhine-Westphalia. It stands on the southern slope of the Nutscheid Ridge, beside the River Sieg and near the Allner See. The town of Hennef lies to the southwest, while the district of Allner is just to the west. The castle once had a moat and still shows its cross-shaped plan with four storeys and corner towers. A mid-seventeenth-century lantern roof crowns the central block, and the front entrance preserves an eighteenth-century imperial staircase of trachyte balustrades.

The castle has been a residence, municipal seat and orphanage, and in April 1945 it became the focus of fighting when US troops tried to cross the Sieg. Wehrmacht machine guns in the towers fired on the crossing boats, and American artillery and tank destroyers answered with more than three thousand 105 mm rounds. The south-west tower was almost destroyed, and the castle changed hands on 8 April after close assaults. Earlier, in the 1870s, Franciscan brother Paschalis Gratzke rebuilt the castle in Gothic Revival style, adding steep mansard roofs and a garden terrace.

Inside, the great hall has two fireplaces bearing the Scheiffart coat of arms. A stone staircase with a carved oak rail leads up to the chapel on the second floor, while the basement contains an eighteenth-century kitchen and wine cellar with panelled walls and a low vaulted ceiling. Outside, a Baroque arched portal marks the entrance, and two long sixteenth-century outbuildings with crow-stepped gables once housed servants and stables. Near the river, an octagonal tower built in 1550 stands on a curtain wall, and a glass-domed seventeenth-century garden house lies within. The main gate is a red-sandstone archway bearing a lion mask and a 1643 marriage escutcheon.