The present Baroque schloss is the successor to a fully moated Wasserschloss built in the sixteenth century for the noble "von Morrien" family.

Dutch precedents, such as the palace Het Loo near Apeldoorn, make their presence felt, but the sandstone facing of Schloss Nordkirchen is purely Westphalian.

The garden front gives onto a landscaped park of some 170 hectares, reached through a formal parterre of scrolling broderie on axis, flanked by expanses of lawn.

The gardens and the surrounded woods are peopled with a multitude of lifesize marble statues, of which the first deliveries were made in 1721 by the Munich sculptor Johann Wilhelm Gröninger.

[citation needed] Nordkirchen Castle features prominently as a location in the 2021 film Spencer, where it stands in for Sandringham House.