Paffendorf castle is one of the many castles and manors in the Erftniederung. Built in the 16th century, the complex is surrounded by moats and consists of the multi-winged, two-storey mansion and the formerly agricultural forecourt, which encloses a spacious farmyard at right angles. Two massive round towers, diagonally opposite, flank the main building. The outer bailey is bounded at the corners by massive towers, which with beveled pedestals reach down to the ditches then fed by Erftwasser.
In the middle of the 19th century, the castle received its neo-gothic appearance through a fundamental reconstruction. The buildings owe their battlements, turrets, balustrades and balconies as well as figurative jewelery. When in 1958 the progressive opencast mine Fortuna-Garsdorf reached the lands belonging to the castle, the then owner sold all the property to a predecessor company of RWE Power.
The castle includes a 7.5-hectare park. Extensive water surfaces and numerous distinctive single trees, among them old sequoias, gingko and giant life trees, characterize the picture. A forestry education gives an impression of the flora of the Tertiary. Descendants of primeval trees, shrubs and moorland plants from other parts of the world provide visitors with a literally living image of the Tertiary.
As a remnant of primeval flora, two 15 million year old sequoia stumps flank the entrance to the castle park. Their high natural content of tannic acid prevented the decomposition over millions of years, so that they could be found well preserved in an open pit.
References:Rosenborg Palace was built in the period 1606-34 as Christian IV’s summerhouse just outside the ramparts of Copenhagen. Christian IV was very fond of the palace and often stayed at the castle when he resided in Copenhagen, and it was here that he died in 1648. After his death, the palace passed to his son King Frederik III, who together with his queen, Sophie Amalie, carried out several types of modernisation.
The last king who used the place as a residence was Frederik IV, and around 1720, Rosenborg was abandoned in favor of Frederiksborg Palace.Through the 1700s, considerable art treasures were collected at Rosenborg Castle, among other things items from the estates of deceased royalty and from Christiansborg after the fire there in 1794.
Soon the idea of a museum arose, and that was realised in 1833, which is The Royal Danish Collection’s official year of establishment.