The town is one of the few European Model Towns and its renovation works are therefore subsidized by the town's urban development promotion programme. There is a mediaeval town centre partly surrounded by a town wall and with a church worth seeing for its
Baroque organ from 1772, built by the famous Stumm family, annually attracting talented international organists. Hillesheim's municipal area is almost round. From the historical town centre, the town broadened out in all directions, growing from its location in the valley through new building developments up to the surrounding slopes.
Buildings Main town • Antoniuskapelle (chapel), Koblenzer Straße, plaster building, apparently from 1735. • Saint Martin's
Catholic Parish Church, Graf-Mirbach-Platz 14,
Classicist aisleless church, 1851–1852. • Town fortifications, south side, eastern and western parts of the crenellated girding wall built about 1300 and raised in the early 16th century. • Across the street from Am Alten Born 1 –
wayside cross,
sandstone shaft cross, latter half of 18th or early 19th century. • Am Markt 14 – three-floor Late
Historicist hotel building with elaborate façade, about 1900. • Am Stockberg, graveyard, Father Pfriem's
Gothic Revival tomb, about 1904,
Baroque wayside cross, red sandstone, from 1814 (?). • At Augustinerstraße 2 – wayside cross, sandstone beam cross, from 1731. • Augustinerstraße 2 – former
Augustinian hermit monastery, three-winged complex, 1721, now a hotel. • Bachstraße 5 – house/inn,
Late Classicist plaster building, apparently from 1886. • Bahnhofstraße 3 – former
railway station, reception building and goods shed, Reform architecture, about 1912. • Burgstraße 12 – solid structure with
timber-frame gable,
Late Gothic window skirting, hall kitchen (?), possibly essentially 16th century. • Grabenstraße/corner of Neutorstraße – sandstone
Crucifixion Bildstock, from 1650 or 1656. • Graf-Mirbach-Platz 17 – representative Late Historicist shop-house, about 1900. • Near in Buch 6 – sandstone Crucifixion
Bildstock, from 1624. • Kölner Straße 10 – former
Amt court, Gothic Revival, apparently from 1868/1878, expanded at the back. • Königsberger Straße/corner of Prümer Straße – wayside cross shaft from 1624 and 1778. • Near Lammersdorferstraße 15 – sandstone
Bildstock from 1613. • Schützenweg 1 – former tannery from 1826. • Wallstraße 6 – two-floor solid structure with roof with half-hipped gables, about 1910. • Former Oberbettingen-Hillesheim
railway station, no number, built to standard plans, separate side building, about 1871. • Former mill (?), Alter Bahnhof 1, three-floor plaster building • Wayside cross, east of town on the road to Walsdorf,
sandstone shaft cross from 1681 (? – last digit in inscription unclear), finial cross and pedestal new. • Wayside crosses, southwest of town on the road to Oberbettingen, so-called
Ablasskreuz ("Indulgence Cross") from the 16th century, sandstone pedestal cross from 1870, pedestal cross from 1949.
Bolsdorf • Saint Margaret's
Catholic Church (branch church), Margarethenstraße 3, triaxial
aisleless church from the 17th century, expanded in 1887, quire and west tower from 1704, forsaken churchyard, quarrystone wall around complex. • Across the street from Im Auel 4 – commercial building (former mill?), one-floor quarrystone building, possibly from earlier half of the 18th century or earlier. • Im Auel 5 – two-floor dwelling and commercial building from the 19th century, trussing in the barn from 1672. • Margarethenstraße 4 – house from the 18th century, oven porch. • Graveyard, north of the village,
Gothic Revival pillar cross from 1869.
Niederbettingen • Heart of Jesus
Catholic Parish Church (
Pfarrkirche Herz-Jesu), Mühlenweg 3,
Late Romanesque Revival basilica, 1897, architect Adam Rüppel,
Bonn; churchyard with retaining wall, shaft cross from 1697, finial cross from 1698,
Late Gothic door skirting, whole complex. • Village fortifications, remnant of the former moated castle's girding wall from the
High Middle Ages. • At Burgring 7 –
timber-frame barn, partly of quarrystone, possibly from the 18th century. • Gartenweg 1 – estate complex,
Baroque house about 1780 or 1790, stable from 1829, barn possibly from the same time. • Gartenweg/corner of Burgring – wayside cross, shaft cross from 1660. • Near Hauptstraße 23 – wayside cross,
Rococo shaft cross from, once thought to be from 1709, but more likely later. • Mühlenweg 4 – former mill (?), stately building with roof with half-hipped gables, about 1800. • Wayside cross, south of the village in the woods near town limits, shaft cross from 1693. • Wayside cross, northwest of the village on the old road to Oberbettingen, shaft cross from 1666. • Wayside cross, southwest of and above the village in a meadow, sandstone shaft cross from the 18th century. == Economy and infrastructure ==