Gut Schlagbaum

The estate lies in the south-west of the former Wichheim-Schweinheim district. The Faulbach stream runs along its eastern side, once feeding the moats; about 300 metres to the north it passes beneath the Strunder Bach. Gut Schlagbaum thus belongs to a group of moated castles and water-defended knights' seats in the area – Haus Herl lies some 700 metres to the west, the Isenburg about 1,200 metres to the north. The original name „zum Lacher Broch“ recalls the once marshy ground, while the later name „Schlagbaum“ (barrier) derives from a toll station on the border of the Duchy of Berg with the Electoral-Cologne district of Deutz.

In the 19th century the Krein family and later the Cologne brick manufacturer Johann Baptist Wahlen held the property, the latter using it as a summer residence; in the 1890s a ring-kiln brickworks was built opposite. In the early 1920s the estate passed to the City of Cologne. After the Second World War, former Polish forced labourers first lived in the war-damaged buildings. In 1950 the city granted the site to four craftspeople under a heritable building right; they repaired the damage and restored the buildings – the burnt-out manor house was not rebuilt. As a farm, Schlagbaum was never significant given its small size (58 Morgen in 1764) and was already run as a leasehold estate in the 17th century.