At the foot of Tecklenburg, one of the most beautiful half-timbered towns in the Münsterland, lies the moated castle Haus Marck. Idyllically nestled in a valley meadow and surrounded by its moat, the manor house is considered an insider tip worth seeing by explorers of the Tecklenburg region.
The Knights of Horne acquired the property in 1368 to build a castle. As early as 1490, however, a new Haus Marck was built, which in the following centuries underwent a few changes of ownership and two major phases of reconstruction, one of them in 1562 in the Renaissance style. The house received its present appearance as a four-winged, single-storey complex in the Baroque style in 1754 after a collapse of the former complex. Since 1803, the estate has been owned by the von Diepenbroick-Grüter family, which has preserved the estate including the surrounding nature.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.