Castle Hohes Haus Nienborg

The High House, with its typical three-stage gable for the Münsterland region, dominates the entire fortress complex. The northwest wall was built on the castle wall. This is evidenced by the 3-meter-thick foundations in the basement of the house, which continue below the wall according to the bend in the northwest house wall. The High House is a large, rectangular building made of rubble stone on a slightly shifted trapezoidal floor plan. The basement, ground floor, and upper floor, meaning the core of the house, can be dated back to the 14th century; it was probably built in 1345 by Heidenreich von Sasse. It is referred to as the "only stone house" in Nienborg. The attic with the two brick three-stage gables that enclose a gabled roof likely dates back to around 1600. The house passed from the de Sasse family to their son-in-law von Valcke in the 15th century. After the von Valcke family, the house came under the ownership of the von Münster family and then the von Raesfeld family.

A fire caused by war events completely destroyed the suburb of Nienborg on February 14, 1593; the High House likely also burned down. The then owners, the Torck family, rebuilt the High House in its current form around 1600. By 1800, the building was owned by the estate administrator Reichsfreiherr Droste zu Vischering. The estate administrator sold the High House, or the "Erbdrostenhof," along with the building and garden in 1813 to the Nienborg cloth makers Johan Bernd Schwietering and Bernard Johan Fransbach. Upon his appointment as the district administrator of the Ahaus district in 1834, Theodor von Heyden purchased the High House and established the offices of the district administration there after appropriate renovations. In 1848, elections for the new legislative body took place there for the districts of Ahaus, Steinfurt, and Borken. After his death in 1858, his daughter Virginia inherited the High House. Following the church fire in 1878, she provided a large room there for temporary worship services. Virginia died in 1905 after she had bequeathed her property to her brother-in-law Ludwig von Bönninghausen. The von Bönninghausen family lived there until their move to Holland in 1916.

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