Hugenpoet Castle & Cromfort Manor HouseControl Centres of Power

Toads and clothes, machines, power and water: both the history of Hugenpoet Castle in Essen and the Cromford manor house in Ratingen are closely linked to the industrial textile history of the Rhine and Ruhr. Built close to the water, they offered their owners not only the very best residential location, but above all favourable conditions for their entrepreneurial activities. Today they offer - here as a hotel, there as a museum - exciting insights into upper middle-class life in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Although located in the Ruhr Area, mining never played a central role in Essen-Kettwig. Instead, the cloth industry dominated until the 1970s. This may be one of the reasons why the von Fürstenberg family moved their residence to Hugenpoet Castle in 1879, which had previously been destroyed and rebuilt several times. Incidentally, its name has nothing to do with poetry - contrary to what one might think when looking at the enchanting grounds - but is derived from the words Hugen (toad) and Poet (pond). The castle is still surrounded by water today. The guests of the hotel run by Maximilian Freiherr von Fürstenberg may not care. At Hugenpoet, they enjoy a few days of luxury in a historic ambience and peaceful location.

The peace and quiet on the grounds of the Cromford textile factory in Ratingen came to an end at the latest when the large water wheel was set in motion and drove the 96 spindles of the true-to-original "Water Frames". The Wuppertal entrepreneur Johann Gottfried Brügelmann, founder of the first factory on the European continent, had the fully mechanical spinning machine developed at the end of the 18th century based on the English model and quickly became one of the richest and most influential men in the Bergisches Land. A manor house befitting his status was therefore needed, which Brügelmann had built right next to the factory in the style of an aristocratic late baroque pleasure palace. The "control centre" of the time, furnished with numerous original exhibits such as the factory owner's prestigious desk and classical wall paintings, is now part of the LVR Cromford Textile Factory Industrial Museum.

The man whose name is inextricably linked with the Ruhr Area thought in even larger dimensions: Alfred Krupp. The Villa Hügel in Essen, which he built from 1870 to 1873 according to his own plans, has no fewer than 399 rooms. This probably most unusual detached house in the country served the Krupps for decades as a prestigious residence and reception centre for emperors, kings, heads of government and entrepreneurs from all over the world. Today, the palace-sized villa is a symbol of industrialisation and a testimony to upper middle-class life and is part of the Route of Industrial Heritage, which links important places in the history of the Ruhr Area along a total route of 400 kilometres. You can't experience them all in one day or one weekend. But once in the area, Villa Hügel - which incidentally has its own S-Bahn stop - is certainly one of the highlights. After all, one of the most important industrialist families did not build their retreat and extensive landscape park just anywhere in the Ruhr Area, but in the middle of a spacious area above Lake Baldeney, an attractive local recreation area with excellent hiking opportunities in the green Ruhr metropolis of Essen.