Thurant Castle

From the early 16th century the double castle gradually fell into disrepair and was made a complete ruin during the destruction wrought by the War of the Palatine Succession.

Count Palatine Henry I the Tall from the House of Welf probably had a fortification built on the present site between 1198 and 1206 in order to secure the claims of his brother, Emperor Otto IV, in the Moselle region.

Although Pope Honorius III protested against this act, Engelbert retained possession of his prize until his death in November 1225, when the castle went back into the hands of the Counts Palatine by Rhine.

The archbishops divided the site into a Trier and a Cologne half which were separated by a wall and each managed by a burgrave appointed by their respective primates.

They used the castle, which was becoming a ruin as early as 1542, as a stone quarry, in order to build a country house in Alken, the Wiltberg’sche Schloss or Wiltburg.

The gatehouse was only built in the course of a partial reconstruction of the castle at the beginning of the 20th  century, while a residential building, the so-called manor house, was rebuilt between 1960 and 1962 after its destruction in the Second World War.

The Trier part of the castle complex can be reached via a gate building, to which a wooden bridge spanning the neck moat leads.

At the north-western corner of the building, a battlements on the Moselle side begins on the western circular wall, which continues into the Cologne part of the castle.

In former times, the Cologne half of the castle could only be reached via a narrow wooden bridge and the adjoining Palatine Gate at the north-western corner of the complex.

Via the former boundary wall to the Trier half of the castle, the southern round tower is connected to the ruins of the Cologne Palace from the 16th  century on the east side of the complex.

At the northern end of the castle stands the so-called hunting lodge with two tourelles, which, like the manor house, was rebuilt on old foundation walls.