Doorwerth Castle

A castle with water around it

Doorwerth Castle stands on the south bank of the Rhine, west of Arnhem, in the village of Doorwerth. It is not in Arnhem Zuid, so do not plan it as a quick stop on the city side of the river. It is a proper walk or ride out of town, and it feels like a different place once you arrive.

The castle is medieval and still has its moat. Behind it the ground rises into woods, and in front the river meadows spread out towards the Rhine. Of the castles near Arnhem, this one looks the most like the picture a child would draw. It is also a museum, so there is plenty to see once you are through the gate.

Burned, rebuilt, enlarged

The first castle was probably built of wood. It is first mentioned in 1260, when it was besieged and burned to the ground. It was rebuilt in stone. In 1280 it was besieged again, and this time the bailey burned. That second castle was probably a simple hall-keep, two storeys high, with walls 1.20 metres thick. A moat fed by the nearby Rhine ran around it.

The castle belonged to the Van Dorenweerd family. In 1402 Robert van Dorenweerd dedicated it to the Count of Gelre, Reinald IV, and received the castle and its land back in fief. Around the middle of the 15th century, Reinald van Homoet, the 10th Lord of Dorenweerd, enlarged it. He also owned Doornenburg Castle.

The castle reached its largest form just after the middle of the 16th century, under Daem Schellart van Obbendorf, the 15th Lord. He joined the castle and the bailey buildings into one whole, with more space and more comfort. By 1560 it looked almost as it does today. Around 1637 the bailey was rebuilt to its present form, and a dike went up around the castle to hold back the Rhine floods.

Neglect and war

Soon after that, money problems forced a change of owner. The castle passed in fief to a German count, Anton I van Aldenburg. By the end of the 18th century nobody lived there. A steward looked after it for owners who were living in England.

Baron J.A.P. van Brakell bought it in 1837 and restored and modernised it. He died in 1844, and the castle fell into neglect again. It stayed that way until 1910, when a retired artillery officer, Frederic Adolph Hoefer, bought it and restored it once more, undoing some of the 19th-century changes. After 1913 it housed a Dutch Artillery Museum.

In 1944 the castle was badly damaged, by German destruction and by Allied shelling. A long restoration followed the war and lasted until 1983. It brought the castle back to its 18th-century state. The foundation Friends of the Castles of Gelderland owns it and runs it as a museum.

What to look for

Start outside. Walk around the moat and look at how the older stone keep sits among the later wings. The walls changed over several centuries, and you can read that in the buildings. Look at the bailey too, rebuilt around 1637, and at the dike that protects the whole site from the river.

The castle has a few stories attached. Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema wrote *Soldaat van Oranje* in 1969 and 1970 in the restaurant Beaulieu here. The film director Stephan Brenninkmeijer was born in the castle in 1964 and lived there until 1970. In 2004 the British television show Most Haunted came to look into the ghosts said to haunt it.