Gimborn Castle, Medieval castle in Marienheide, Germany

Gimborn Castle stands in a remote valley of the upper Leppe at 278 metres above sea level. The grey and brown masonry complex has a slender round tower with a steep conical roof and clock face on the left, a lower wing with arched windows, and a central block with a dark hipped roof and red-framed square windows. Two domed towers sit at the rear and right, and a balcony with red railing spans the facade above three ground-floor arches. It was never a moated castle.

Gimborn was first recorded in 1273, when the Count of Berg pledged it to the Count of the Mark; it was not built that year. From 1631 it served as the residence of the county of Gimborn-Neustadt under the House of Schwarzenberg, administered by governors while the princes lived in Vienna and Bohemia. The Barons von Fürstenberg zu Gimborn bought the castle and estate in 1874 and still own them.

Once a year the castle opens its gates for the Schützenfest of the Gimborn St. Sebastianus shooting brotherhood, founded in 1610. The grounds otherwise serve as a conference and meeting centre of the International Police Association, which has used the castle since 1969.

The castle now operates as a conference center, so public access is limited outside of organized events. Checking for scheduled gatherings or the annual festival in advance is the best way to visit the grounds.

The chain pulleys of a former drawbridge still visible on the building date from the new main house begun around 1600, not from a bridge over a moat. The ditch on the northwest side only kept the floor below street level dry. The spring beneath the southwest tower always fed the castle pond directly, never the ditch.