Kasteel Bleijenbeek

Castle Bleijenbeek, often written in German also Blyenbeck, is a ruined castle in the village of Afferden of mountains in the Dutch province of Limburg. 1405 included the installation Wijnand van Schenck Nijdeggen.

Here resided Martin Schenk of Nideggen who had brought it to the commander in the Spanish and Dutch services. In 1589, during the Eighty Years' War, the castle was occupied by the Spaniards.

1708 was the moated castle owned by the Counts of Hoensbroech.

As from 1872, as part of the Kulturkampf, the Jesuits were expelled by virtue of the Jesuits laws of Germany, presented the owner, Count Franz Egon von Hoensbroech ( 1805-1874 ), the father of the ex- Jesuits and Jesuit critic Paul Graf von Hoensbroech, the country lock this Order as asylum available. It lived among others, there the famous priest writer Joseph Spillmann, the "Paradise Room " processed the story of Blijenbeek and its former inhabitants, cupbearer of Nideggen, in the narrative.

At the plant, the tea house ( theehuisje ) belonged to a pond. The castle was destroyed by a bombing in February 1945. The ruins of the outer walls intact to this day.

The moat around the castle Bleijenbeek is leased by the resident fishing club " HSV de voorn Afferden " and houses a rich collection of freshwater fish.

Joseph Spillmann describes Bleijenbeek, 1885, in the introduction to his story " The Paradise Room " as follows:

"From the town of Goch, the trail leads through fertile fields westward to the Dutch border. In a small hour or so you can easily reach the old Augustinian pin Gaesdonk. Just behind Gaesdonk forms a stream, the boundary between Prussia and the Netherlands. We still have not completed a thousand steps on this, so listen to the fertile soil and transformed rapidly into desolate moors. Then stretches, interrupted here and there by sand dunes and marshes, nearly two hours wide, from up on the lower banks of the Meuse, the heath. Approximately in the middle of this barren stretch of land stands the castle Bleijenbeek, a real Dutch castle, surrounded by wide moats that formed its strength in old times. The castle garden of his dark Taxuswände and fresh green arbours, its shady lime trees and horse chestnuts is reflected in the wide expanse of the trench is much nicer than should be expected after the tiring going through the heather him the wanderer. The old castle house with the weather-beaten brick walls, the huge slate roof and the square means tower still retains its stately appearance. From the south side carries a wide stone bridge across the pond almost like outer moat. The outer courtyard is today surrounded on three sides by the Rentei, a tenant dwelling and farm buildings, while the castle building occupies the fourth side. This ( the mansion ) encloses again a broad ditch, but is now dry and is partially planted with flowers and ornamental shrubs. About leads him to the castle portal a second bridge. The castle building is a massive square with a narrow arcaded inner courtyard, from which the tower, half built into the northern main wing, rises to a moderate height above the massive roofs. "