Schloss Nordkirchen in the Gemeinde Nordkirchen in Kreis Coesfeld, Westphalia, Germany, built in 1703 to 1734, is known as the “Versailles of Westphalia” as it is the largest of the partly moated Wasserschlösser in that region. It was originally one of the residences of the Prince-bishops of Munster.
The present Baroque schloss is the successor of a true moated Wasserschloss built in the sixteenth century for the von Morrien. The present structure was raised on the site in several building campaigns for the Fürstbischof Friedrich Christian von Plettenberg zu Lenhausen and his successor Fürstbischof Ferdinand von Plettenberg. It passed in 1833 to the Esterházy who alienated it to Duke Engelbert Marie von Arenberg in 1903. In 1933 the newly founded Arenberg-Nordkirchen GmbH assumed possession. From 1958 the schloss was the site of the business school Fachhochschule für Finanzen Nordrhein-Westfalen. It was purchased outright by Nordrhein-Westfalen in 1959, to which the neighboring Oranienburg and the park were subsequently added, as well as the southern area of deer park including a shelter belt of more than 1000 hectares (2,470 acres) of surrounding woodland, added in 2004. Parts of the interior are open to the public, as are the parterres and the surrounding park. The chapel may be rented for weddings.
Schloss and the park are declared as a “Art work of international standing” by UNESCO. The park belongs to the European Garden Heritage Network.
The schloss stands on a rectangular island surrounded by a broad moat-like canal. At the island’s four corners stand four small free-standing pavilions.
The garden front gives onto a landscaped park of some 170 hectares (420 acres), reached through a formal parterre of scrolling broderie on axis, flanked by expanses of lawn. The gardens and the surrounded woods are peopled with a multitude of lifesize marble statues of which the first deliveries were made in 1721 from the Munich sculptor Johann Wilhelm Gröninger. Other sculptures were delivered by Panhoff and Charles Manskirch. Further sculptures were added during the restoration in neo-Baroque style, undertaken in 1903-07.
