Schweppenburg

The Schweppenburg is a Baroque palace in the Brohl valley, near Brohl-Lützing in Rheinland-Pfalz. Its foundations go back to a 14th-century castle first recorded in 1365. The present building took shape between 1637 and 1639 when Bertram von Metternich remodelled the old stronghold. In 1785 the medieval curtain walls were pulled down, leaving only the residential wing. Since 1716 the palace has belonged to the von Geyr family, a branch of Cologne patricians who took the name Schweppenburg. The site carries the marks of its turbulent past. Arnold von Schweppenburg received the castle and the working Schweppenburg Mill as a fief of the Archbishop of Cologne in 1377. The mill still grinds today beside the brook. In 1794 the owner Pankratius Sackmann defended the house against French revolutionary troops. Later guidebooks praised the healing waters of the nearby Laach Lake. Visitors walk through the palace courtyard and along the brook to the old mill. The remaining Baroque façade shows tall windows and a symmetrical roof. Beyond the gate the valley opens to vineyards and the distant Ahr hills. The millrace and the ruins of the outer walls frame the scene, linking the present house to its medieval origins.