Werdringen Moated Castle

A beautiful moated castle, whose visit is worthwhile in any case. A café offers coffee and cake in the castle courtyard. Beautifully situated in the forest. Unfortunately a bit too busy.

Water castle with museum, impressive plane tree on the ring road.

The Wasserschloss Werdringen is a moated castle in Hagen-Vorhalle near the Ruhr on the Harkortsee below the Kaisberg. It houses a supra-regional museum of prehistory and early history. The originally built as Wasserburg facility is located in a nature and conservation area surrounded by mature trees. In the trees and moats of the castle are rare animal and plant species. The landscape around the moated castle is well-known for its diverse amphibian fauna and numerous protected dragonfly species, including the largest dragonflies found in Central Europe. It is interesting to see the fossils of the ancestors of these amphibians and dragonflies in the Museum of Prehistory and Prehistory, which is located in the former castle complex. The surrounding area of ​​the moated castle is a historical landscape and has been one of the most important sites for fossils and archaeological finds for more than 200 years. Not far from the castle is the former Hagen-Vorhalle quarry. There, the world's oldest known flying insects in the history of the earth were discovered. They lived in the Carboniferous about 316 million years ago. At the foot of the Kaisberg in 1876 three longswords of the younger Bronze Age were found, which are among the archaeological treasures in North Rhine-Westphalia. But even the oldest modern people in Westphalia and the Ruhr area were found near the moated castle near Hohenlimburg. In the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in the water castle Werdringen numerous geological and archaeological finds from 450 million years of history of the southern Ruhr area and Sauerland are exhibited. The numerous natural and cultural monuments, the picturesque view into the Ruhr valley with the neighboring ruins of the castle Volmarstein and the castle weather as well as the Wetters Harkortturm and Freiherr-vom-Stein-Turm make Werdringen a place that is among the most attractive in North Rhine -Westphalia counts.