Gereonsmühle

The Gereonsmühle tower has been documented since 1446. It was one of 52 towers that, together with 36 gates and smaller posterns – 12 on the land side, 24 on the Rhine side – enclosed the city from 1180 onwards. The names "Gereons-Mühle" and "Herrenleichnam-Mühle" refer to the neighbouring, no longer preserved Gereonstor gate and to the Herrenleichnam monastery that lay behind it.

In the 15th century the eastern half-tower was converted into a windmill. Besides the Gereonsmühle, two further mill towers were created in the same way: the Kartäusermühle at the Ulrepforte and the Pantaleonsmühle at the Bachtor. In 1558 the tower had to be renovated because it had become dilapidated, and a final repair took place in 1808.

Because it passed into private hands in 1838 – Andreas Hochkirchen, originally from Sürth, bought it from the city for 1,460 talers – the Gereonsmühle was spared demolition. In 1908 the city bought the mill back. On a southern reserve plot, the Department of Christian Art of the Schnütgen Collection was built between 1911 and 1913, from which the Museum Schnütgen emerged; the architect Franz Brantzky incorporated the city wall, the wall-walk and the mill tower into the museum building. After the destruction of the Second World War, the museum complex on Hansaring was abandoned. On the eastern narrow side, remnants survived, including a console of the star vault and part of the portal that connected the sculpture hall to the city wall.