Schloss Gracht
Facts and practical information
The moated castle Gracht in Erftstadt-Liblar is one of the moated castles of the Cologne area. It is a two-part complex with a three-winged outer castle and a two-winged manor house. The garden of the castle was probably laid out at the beginning of the 18th century by the Münster master gardener Gottfried Laurenz Pictorius according to the French model and was redesigned in the 19th century in its rear parts in the style of an English landscape park.
The manor house belonged to the Wolff-Metternich family for four centuries, who had their ancestral seat there until 1957. Several famous personalities were born in the castle, such as Franz Arnold von Wolff-Metternich zur Gracht in 1658, Prince-Bishop of Paderborn - where he succeeded his uncle Hermann Werner von Wolff-Metternich zur Gracht - and Münster; and in 1829 the freedom fighter of 1848 and later U.S. Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz.
North Rhine-Westphalia