Paffendorf is first mentioned in the year 1230.

After 1516, the property was transferred by Maria Mascherel von Rode, daughter of Winand V. Mascherel von Rode, lord of Wijnandsrade Castle (near Nuth , Limburg Province), to her husband Wilhelm von dem Bongart , lord of Bergerhausen Castle.

Paffendorf Castle is one of the many castles and manor houses in the Erft lowlands. The complex, fully built in the 16th century, is surrounded by moats and consists of the multi-wing, two-storey manor house and the outer bailey, which was formerly used for agriculture and encloses a spacious farmyard at right angles. Two massive round towers, diagonally opposite each other, flank the main building. The outer bailey is bordered at the corners by massive towers, which with slanted bases reach down into the moat, which was fed by Erft water at the time.

Paffendorf Castle also remained one of the family's secondary seats for over 400 years. In the middle of the 19th century, the castle was given its neo-Gothic appearance through a fundamental reconstruction. The buildings owe their battlements, turrets, balustrades and balconies as well as their figurative decorations to this. When the expanding Fortuna-Garsdorf open-cast mine reached the lands belonging to the castle in 1958, the then owner sold the entire property to a predecessor company of RWE Power.