Kajuru Castle is a luxury villa, built between the years 1981 and 1989, at

Kajuru Kajuru ( Adara: Ajure) is a local government area in southern Kaduna State, Nigeria. Its headquarters is in the town of Kajuru. The local government is located on longitude 9° 59'N and 10° 55'N and latitude 7° 34'E and 8° 13'E, with an area of ...

(Ajure) village in southern

Kaduna State Kaduna State ( ha, Jihar Kaduna جىِهَر كَدُنا; ff, Leydi Kaduna, script=Latn, ; kcg, Sitet Kaduna) is a state in northern Nigeria. The state capital is its namesake, the city of Kaduna which happened to be the 8th largest city in ...

, Nigeria. It was built by a German expatriate in Nigeria, living in

Kaduna Kaduna is the capital city of Kaduna State, and the former political capital of Northern Region, Nigeria, Northern Nigeria. It is located in north-western Nigeria, on the Kaduna River. It is a trade Centre and a major transportation hub as the ...

at the time. The castle is located at about 45 km from

on a mountaintop in Kajuru (Ajure) village,

. Built with 1 meter thick granite stone in a fanciful medieval-inspired Romanesque style, it is adorned with turrets, an armory and a dungeon. The castle is privately owned, and has the capacity to host 150 guests.

Architecture

The castle is often described as an African version of the

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

n Castle in a grand 19th-century

Romanesque revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

style. It has a baronial styled hall, coupled with dungeons and towers lined with

crenellated A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

walls. The castle also has a big “knight’s hall” and a landlord (masters) residence and several other rooms over its three floors.

Incident

On 19 April 2019, unidentified terrorists armed with heavy weapons broke into the castle, killing two people, a British communication specialist and a Nigerian assistant for

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

company

Mercy Corps Mercy Corps is a global non-governmental, humanitarian aid organization operating in transitional contexts that have undergone, or have been undergoing, various forms of economic, environmental, social and political instabilities. The organizatio ...

. The unidentified terrorists also kidnapped three others. Later on, the kidnapped hostages were released after an intervention by the Nigerian police.

References

Residential buildings in Nigeria Villas Houses completed in 1989 Buildings and structures in Nigeria Tourist attractions in Kaduna State Castles in Nigeria {{Nigeria-struct-stub

Architecture

Incident

See also

References