Paffendorf Castle (Germany)

The castle Paffendorf is one of the many castles and manors in the Erftniederung. Built in the 16th century, the complex is surrounded by moats and consists of the multi-winged, two-storey mansion and the formerly agricultural forecourt, which encloses a spacious farmyard at right angles. Two massive round towers, diagonally opposite, flank the main building. The outer bailey is bounded at the corners by massive towers, which with beveled pedestals reach down to the ditches then fed by Erftwasser.

In the middle of the 19th century, the castle received its neo-gothic appearance through a fundamental reconstruction. The buildings owe their battlements, turrets, balustrades and balconies as well as figurative jewelery. When in 1958 the progressive opencast mine Fortuna-Garsdorf reached the lands belonging to the castle, the then owner sold all the property to a predecessor company of RWE Power.

The castle includes a 7.5-hectare park. Extensive water surfaces and numerous distinctive single trees, among them old sequoias, gingko and giant life trees, characterize the picture. A forestry education gives an impression of the flora of the Tertiary. Descendants of primeval trees, shrubs and moorland plants from other parts of the world provide visitors with a literally living image of the Tertiary.

As a remnant of primeval flora, two 15 million year old sequoia stumps flank the entrance to the castle park. Their high natural content of tannic acid prevented the decomposition over millions of years, so that they could be found well preserved in an open pit.