Archäologiemuseum Hagen - Wasserschloss Werdringen

In the location's words:

Werdringen moated castle is located in the Vorhalle district of Hagen at the foot of the legendary Kaisberg. Located in the Ruhr Valley on the banks of Lake Harkort, the former aristocratic residence from the 13th century is surrounded by a unique nature reserve and historical landscape. It contains several geological outcrops as well as numerous ground and architectural monuments. These include the national geotope in the former Vorhalle brickworks. A geological trail leading to the Kaisberg opens up the earliest coal seams worth mining in the Ruhr region from Werdringen. Among the caves in the Devonian mass limestone that have been used by humans since the Palaeolithic Age, the Blätterhöhle cave is particularly worthy of mention. However, medieval castles, churches and monasteries as well as industrial monuments can also be found in the region.

Over 200 years of research and collection history

Fossils and finds were first reported in Hagen over 225 years ago. Noblemen and commoners collected fossils, cave finds, ceramics and stone artifacts. In 1927, the first museums for geological and archaeological finds were established in Hagen. The "Sauerland Museum of Prehistory and Early History" in Hagen, founded in 1937, was destroyed during the Second World War. The discovery of Upper Carboniferous large insects and other fossil animals in the Ziegeleiste quarry in Vorhalle from 1982 and of Stone Age burials and settlement layers in the Blätterhöhle cave and its forecourt from 2004 gave Hagen's discovery landscape a distinctly international significance.