Top 9 Castles around Westerstede

Excavations confirmed the existence of the complex - information boards: Three mountains used to be the Dreibergen castle hill. "Three mountains" stand out in the town of the same name on the northern shore of the sea. Many people have certainly puzzled over the hills. They are - as excavations by archaeologist Dr. Dieter Zoller prove - more than just simple elevations. In the middle of the twelfth century, a castle complex belonging to the Counts of Elmendorf stood here. Information boards present the history. https://www.bad-zwischenahn.de/de/gemeindeportrait/geschichte/Elmendorfer-Burg.php

Elmendorf Castle, also called Elmendorf Castle or Three Hill Motte, is a ruined tower hill castle (motte) in the Dreibergen nature reserve on the northern shore of the Zwischenahner Meer near Elmendorf, a district of Bad Zwischenahn in the Ammerland district in Lower Saxony.

Köhlmoor Castle was rebuilt in 2014 and is located next to the airfield in Felde - Westerstede. The castle received its name because the “Köhlmoor” was once located in this area. In the 17th/18th In the 19th century, two families lived here and burned high-quality charcoal from the heavy peat. The style of the house is modeled on historic Renaissance country house castles both inside and out. The outer facade - a dream of white and yellow - is decorated with shell and stucco ornaments. A large mural decorates the entrance area.

Excavations confirmed the existence of the facility - information boards: Three hills were once castle mounds, Dreibergen. The "three hills" rise conspicuously in the place of the same name on the north shore of the sea. Many have surely wondered about the hills. They are - as excavations by archaeologist Dr. Dieter Zoller prove - more than just simple elevations. In the mid-12th century, a castle complex of the Counts of Elmendorf stood here. Information boards present the history. Dr. Dieter Zoller, who died in 1993, assumed that Elmendorf Castle developed from a fortified noble court destroyed in the 10th century. This was followed by the construction of a tower castle on a flat hill, which was destroyed in the first half of the 12th century. This court and castle complex was rebuilt around 1150 by piling up the large, approximately ten-meter-high hills with a new structure. From the finds, including ceramics, a steelyard, bronze brooches, a horse bit, and a dragon-shaped candlestick, his son and architect Dirk Zoller created several reconstruction drawings. Subsequently, from the mid-12th century, several residential and utility buildings for the castle staff stood on the flattest hill. This hill was connected to the main hill by a drawbridge. On it was the castle itself - a 12-sided, mighty timber-framed residential tower. Another bridge connected the castle to the western hill, where a watchtower was presumably located. The entire complex was surrounded by moats. Little is known about the ownership. Originally, the castle probably belonged to the comital vogts in Ammerland. Count Eglimar II of Oldenburg (1108-1142) gave the nobleman Friedrich von Anvorde his daughter Beatrix as a wife. He took over the castle. In 1243, Abbess Gertrud von Anvorde bequeathed her estates to Hude Monastery. In 1331, the castle came back into the possession of the Counts of Oldenburg through an exchange. Thereafter, the Elmendorf motte lost importance and gradually fell into disrepair. https://www.bad-zwischenahn.de/de/gemeindeportrait/geschichte/Elmendorfer-Burg.php

In 1952, the then district archaeologist Dieter Zoller located the location of the castle in what is now the Wiesengrund landscape park. In 2013, two former moats were uncovered here during an excavation. According to this, Specken Castle was a typical late medieval lowland castle with "at least one large building" and a relatively small castle square measuring 30 × 30 meters, surrounded by an inner moat five to six meters wide. According to an assessment of the finds, the castle existed from around 1300 to 1500. The complex had no major military function, but was important as the fortified seat of a ministerial family, whose most important representative was the Oldenburg Drost Jakob von der Specken, who was in charge of the administration and military command in the County of Oldenburg and who wrote the important Oldenburg Salbuch of 1428, a precise list of the possessions and income of the Oldenburg counts.

The stock book of Drosten von Specken documents which householders were subject to levies (serfs) to the Count of Oldenburg in 1428.

Neuenburg Castle and the adjacent park, including the Heimathof, are definitely worth a detour.

Felde airfield with Köhlmoor Castle