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 Jan Hus Memorial stands at one end of Old Town Square. The huge monument depicts victorious Hussite warriors and Protestants who were forced into exile 200 years after Hus, and a young mother who symbolises national rebirth. The monument was so large that the sculptor designed and built his own villa and studio where the work could be carried out. It was unveiled in 1915 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Jan Hus' martyrdom. The memorial was designed by Ladislav Šaloun and paid for solely by public donations.
Born in 1369, Hus became an influential religious thinker, philosopher, and reformer in Prague. He was a key predecessor to the Protestant movement of the sixteenth century. In his works he criticized religious moral decay of the Catholic Church. Accordingly, the Czech patriot Hus believed that mass should be given in the vernacular, or local language, rather than in Latin. He was inspired by the teachings of John Wycliffe.