The municipality lies on the river Moselle and is surrounded by steep slate slopes. Vineyards in Klotten include Burg Coraidelstein, Brauneberg and Rosenberg.
History
In 698, Klotten had its first documentary mention. The Polish queen Richeza, Count Palatine Ezzo's daughter and Emperor Otto II's granddaughter, quite probably stayed with her three children between 1040 and 1049 in Klotten, where she had herself built a chapel (Nikolauskirche, or Saint Nicholas's Church) and a dwelling tower, which was linked by a bridge to the chapel. Upon her death on 21 March 1063, she bequeathed all that she owned to the Brauweiler Benedictine Abbey near Cologne. Her sarcophagus stands today in Cologne Cathedral, to the left below the High Altar, the "Epiphany Shrine".
The German blazon reads: Von Silber und Blau gespalten. Vorn in Silber ein roter Torturm mit 3 Zinnen, offenem Tor und 3 (2:1) offenen Fenstern. In Blau ein aus dem Schildfuß wachsender goldener Bischofsstab mit Krümme nach außen, darunter im Schildfuß ein schräglinkes, silbernes Wellenbad.
The municipality's arms might in English heraldic language be described thus: Per pale argent issuant from base a gate tower embattled of three gules with three windows and gate of the field, and azure issuant from base a bishop's staff sinister Or surmounted in base by a bendlet sinister wavy of the first.
The arms were designed by Decku of Sankt Wendel and A. Friderichs of Zell.[5]
Town partnerships
Klotten fosters partnerships with the following places:
The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:
Burg Coraidelstein (monumental zone) – castle apparently founded by Count Palatine Herman I (last mentioned in 996), important expansion in 1338, “new structure on the fortifications at Klotten” built in 1545, never destroyed, sold for demolition in 1830; still preserved: essentially Romanesquekeep with Gothic casing, castle house with round tower, side building (in the southeast a manor house built in 1543–1547 with remnants of three round towers), villa from 1905, renovated in 1955
Am Mühlenberg – wayside chapel, 17th century; niche cross, 17th century; basalt wayside cross, from 1683
Bahnhofstraße – railway station; one-floor quarrystone building, partly timber-frame, early 20th century
Bahnhofstraße 6 – timber-frame house, partly solid, plastered and slated, half-hipped roof, 16th century
Hauptstraße 26 – school; quarrystone building, from 1907
Hauptstraße 56 – sculpture of Saint Nicholas, 19th century
Hauptstraße 69 – three-floor timber-frame house, partly solid, from 1588
Hauptstraße 72 – timber-frame house, partly solid, plastered, about 1600
Hauptstraße 75 – former Malmedyer Hof, manor of Brauweiler Abbey; three-floor timber-frame house, partly solid, 16th century, spire light from the 19th century
Hauptstraße 80 – timber-frame house, partly solid, from 1632; hearth heating plate, 18th century
Hauptstraße 89/91 – quarrystone double house, from 1896
Hauptstraße 101 – three-floor timber-frame house, from 1545
Hauptstraße 102/103 – three-floor timber-frame house, partly solid, from 1545; fountain, from 1463 (or 1863 – inscription unclear)
Hauptstraße 104 – three-floor timber-frame house, partly solid, plastered, half-hipped roof, from 1583, 1585 and 1664
Hohlstraße 4 – timber-frame house, partly solid or sided, possibly from the 16th or 17th century
Hohlstraße 20 – Moselle winemaker's house; quarrystone building, 19th century
Hohlstraße/corner of Schulstraße – handpump, 19th century
Kernstraße/corner of Hauptstraße – wayside cross, from 1772
Martinstraße 3 – portal, from 1776
Mittelstraße – Bildstock; solid, plastered, roughly 2.5 m tall, big niche, about 1800
Mittelstraße 48 – timber-frame house, plastered, 17th century
Mittelstraße 52 – Moselle winemaker's house; big quarrystone building, from 1871
Mittelstraße 57 – three-floor timber-frame house, partly solid, plastered and slated, from 1621
Mittelstraße 58 – timber-frame house, partly solid, half-hipped roof, 16th or 17th century
Obere Kirchstraße 16 – Alte Post; Late Historicist plastered building, sided, about 1900
Obere Kirchstraße/corner of Brühlstraße – wayside chapel, 19th century; niche cross, from 1599
Reuschelstraße 6/7 – two timber-frame houses, partly solid, about 1700, shed; whole complex
Schulstraße – Saint Maximin'sCatholic Parish Church (Pfarrkirche St. Maximin); Romanesque west tower, built higher in 1564, originally twin-naved, south chapel from the 16th century, in 1868 remodelled into an entrance hall while nave was expanded into a three-naved hall church; bronze door boss, 12th century; at the graveyard 42 grave crosses, earliest from 1507; tomb, 19th century; Late Gothic stone cross, earlier half of the 15th century; warriors’ memorial; Crucifixion group, 19th century; whole complex with old graveyard and rectory
Schulstraße – wayside cross, from 1657
Schulstraße 3 – former tithing house; quarrystone building, partly timber-frame, 18th century
Schulstraße 4 – door lintel with engravings, about 1050
Jewish graveyard – 14 gravestones, oldest from 1878
Chapel with Way of the Cross – aisleless church with timber-frame porch; two crosses, from 1637 and 1679; grave cross, 18th century; Way of the Cross, steles with reliefs, late 19th or early 20th century
Kavelocherhof – chapel with relief, Trinity relief, 18th century
Way of the Cross – steles with reliefs
Northwest of Klotten – wayside crosses, niche cross, from 1652; two cross fragments
Below the castle – Way of the Cross, reliefs, 20th century[6]
Since 2002, Saint Maximin's Church has housed a reliquary of Polish queen Richeza.
Other sites
Nearby on the Moselle heights is found the Klotten Wilderness and Leisure Park (Wild- und Freizeitpark Klotten). Also worth seeing is the Dortebachtal Nature Conservation Area (Naturschutzgebiet Dortebachtal).
Parish Church
Steeple
Plaque with Klotten's and partner municipality Berlaimont's coats of arms
Above Klotten: Seitskapelle
Further reading
Alfons Friderichs: Auf den Spuren der Polenköniging Richeza in Klotten, in: Begegnung mit Polen, Düsseldorf 1968, 9/12.
Alfons Friderichs, Karl Josef Gilles: Klotten und Burg Coraidelstein. In: Rheinische Kunststätten, Heft 8, 1969, veränderte
Auflage, Heft 120, 1980.
Alfons Friderichs: Klotten und seine Geschichte. In: Schriftreihe der Ortchroniken des Trierer Landes, Bd. 29, Briedel 1997.
