Ampsen
A Gelderland estate with two medieval fortified houses.
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Where it is
Coordinates: 52°10′01″N 6°25′01″E (52.1670, 6.4170) · Open in OpenStreetMap
Coordinates and connected clubs: the infobox of Wikipedia: Ampsen (CC BY-SA 4.0). Map: drawn by Codexery from OpenStreetMap tiles.
Ampsen is an estate, castle, and hamlet in the municipality of Lochem, Gelderland, administratively part of the village of Exel. Its history reaches back to at least the early 12th century, when a witness named Ulricus de Amsene appears in a spurious charter. The site originally comprised two separate fortified houses, Ouden-Ampsen and Nieuwen-Ampsen.
History
In 1105 a witness named Ulricus de Amsene appears in a spurious charter, from which it is inferred that an Ampsen estate already existed. Two estates bore the name: Ouden-Ampsen and Nieuwen-Ampsen. Ouden-Ampsen was a fief of the dukes of Guelders, recorded in the fief registers of the Zutphen quarter from 1379, and was a fortified house by 1389, when its owner pledged not to harm the Duke of Gelre from it. Nieuwen-Ampsen, an allodial estate adjacent to Ouden-Ampsen, became a Guelders fief in 1650.
Both houses were destroyed by the Spaniards in 1605. Gerrit Jan van Nagell had the current house built around 1650, though it is uncertain whether he used a new location or the old one.
Shortly after 1754 Johan Herman Sigismund van Nagell added a wing to the right of the L-shaped building, creating a U-shape, and the castle moat was filled in. Today a farm named Ampsen and a partly moated castle island mark the site of Oud-Ampsen, with a Nieuwen-Ampsen farm between that spot and the current castle. The castle and estate remain privately owned.
More in Castles in Gelderland
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Ampsen (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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