Gut Bustedt

The Bustedt estate is a castle in the county of Ravensberg in the northwest of Hiddenhausen, in the district of Herford. Gut Bustedt is the seat of the Bustedt Biology Centre.

The estate was built in 1415 by knight Heinrich Ledebur as a moated castle on the property of the Herford convent. Since the lands belonged to the monastery, this led to a feud between Ledebur and the Herford abbess. Ledebur had to leave the estate after the lost feud at the instigation of the Herford abbess in 1419. The original castle was demolished and rebuilt by the abbess, became a pawn object and was then long associated with the Drosten of the County of Ravensberg, above all the Nagel family, who had Bustedt as a fief for over 100 years. The castle was then also the seat of the Amt Enger for a long time. The castle thus de facto fell to the Counts of Ravensberg. From 1649, the castle was converted into a moated castle by cavalry captain Wolf-Ernst Eller, confidant of the Great Elector of Brandenburg and commander of the Sparrenburg. In the meantime, the county of Ravensberg had fallen to Brandenburg-Prussia and Eller received the castle from the Prussians as a reward for his betrayal of the city of Herford to the Swedes in the Thirty Years' War. In 1964, the Bustedt estate, which had previously been owned by the von Eller family, later Eller-Eberstein, came into the possession of the Hiddenhausen office. Nowadays, organic research is carried out at the estate, and schools from all over Bünde make day trips to the estate to get to know the world of plants and animals better.

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