Useldange Castle

Useldange Castle (French: Château d'Useldange) is a medieval castle, now mainly in ruin, located in the village of Useldange in western Luxembourg. The site can be visited throughout the year with special arrangements for poorly sighted visitors.

Useldange Castle

Location

The castle stands on a small hill in the centre of the village overlooking the River Attert. The ruins present a reasonable picture of the medieval castle, especially the outer wall and one of the round towers. A bridge over the former moat, 10 m (33 ft) wide, provides access to the castle. The keep, 25 m (82 ft) tall, stands at the centre of the site.[1]

History

The castle appears to date from the 12th century when the lordship of Useldange was created. One of the early lords was Théobald d'Useldange. After the dynasty died out in the middle of the 13th century, Jean de Rodemacher became the legitimate proprietor in 1415 by marriage with Irmgard de Boulay. In 1479, Maximilian I confiscated the property and charged Christopher of Baden with its upkeep. As a result of the war between France and Burgundy, the castle and its chapel were seriously damaged. William of Nassau-Vianden, who inherited the castle, sold it to François-Sébastien Baur of Everlange in 1674. The castle fell increasingly into disrepair and the chapel was destroyed in 1903.[2]

In 1924, American immigrant Mrs. Emma (Wolff) Kuhn, originally from Useldange, returned to buy the ruined castle. After consolidating the walls in 1934, the family went on to build a modern property over the ruins of the castle's palace. It has now become the town hall. The castle is being restored by the State of Luxembourg.[2]

The castle today

The castle is open to visitors throughout the year. Special arrangements have been made to allow handicapped and weakly sighted visitors to experience the site.[1]

gollark: If there's some leather available, and two different production processes needing leather, how do you decide which factory gets which?
gollark: And a quota for "10 tons of nails", so they made a single 10-ton nail.
gollark: There were things with Soviet truck depots driving trucks in circles pointlessly because they had a quota of "40000 miles driven".
gollark: If your factory is told to make 100K units of winter clothing of any kind they will probably just go for the simplest/easiest one, even if it isn't very useful to have 100K winter coats (extra small) (plain white). Now, you could say "but in capitalism they'll just make the cheapest one", but companies are directly subservient to what consumers actually want and can't get away with that.
gollark: That is why we have the "legal system"./

References
  1. "Château fort d'Useldange", Service des Sites et Monuments Nationaux. (in French) Retrieved 26 March 2011.
  2. "Le Château de Useldange", Association des châteaux luxembourgeois. (in French) Retrieved 26 March 2011.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.