Confessions of a Castleholic

Situated south-west of Hamelin, the small German town famous for its Pied Paper, Burg Aerzen was firstly mentioned in 1293 as borch Artelsen . At the time, the Burg and surrounding village was owned by the Lords of Everstein. Towards the end of the 12th century, the Eversteins had risen through the ranks of the nobility as supporters and relatives of the Hohenstaufen rulers after the defeat of the Guelph ruler Heinrich the Lion. The tides turned, however, and as a conclusion of peace Hermann VII of Everstein forged the engagement of his daughter, only four years old at the time, to the future Duke Otto IV of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Burg Aerzen formed part of Elisabeth von Everstein's dowry. After it came into the hands of the Guelph family, Burg Aerzen was given to the Bishopric of Hildesheim. It handed the castle and village over as a joined fiefdom to Stacius von Münchhausen and Heinrich von Hardenberg, both of very well-known noble families of the area, in 1508....

"Dear Castleholic, don't all castles just simply blend together once you have visited 50 or 100?" - That's a question I get occasionally asked. My answer: No. While Schloss Hülsede may be the 10th or 20th castle in the Weser-Renaissance style I've visited , does it look like the others to you? Each and every one of the castles out there has its own history and while there may be similarities, castles never look exactly the same. The history of today's Wasserschloss , or moated castle, dates back to the year 1529 when a previous building on the same site was removed in favour of a small fortified castle today forming the front part of the left wing.  The man behind the new castle was Claus von Rottorp, whose family had been given the estate as a fiefdom by the Counts of Schaumburg some 200 years earlier. The famous military leader expanded the original structure into a four-winged castle over the following decades with construction lasting until 1548. O...

If you have been a regular follower of Confessions of a Castleholic  over the past couple of years, you could have gotten the impression that the modern German state of Lower Saxony comprises only of former Guelph territories. While large areas of the current federal state were indeed part of the former Kingdom of Hanover or Duchy of Brunswick, there are two other former monarchies making up today's Lower Saxony: The small Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe around Bückeburg as well as the much larger Grand Duchy of Oldenburg. During the days of the monarchy, today's Schloss  served as the main residence of the Counts, Dukes and finally Grand Dukes. The earliest castle on the same spot as today's Schloss dates back to around the year 1100. It was built by the Counts of Oldenburg to control a trading route between Westphalia to the south and East Frisia to the north of Oldenburg. Due to the swampy grounds, the castle was based on stilts. During the course of the 15t...

Schloss Lauenau actually is one of three castles in the village of Lauenau near Hanover, the other two being Schloss Meysenbug and Schloss Schwedesdorf . (And no, yours truly wasn't aware of this tiny village's castle density up until weeks ago which just goes to show that I'm a bad Castleholic because I live about half an hour away. Anyway...) Because of the many castles in Lauenau, this one is also oftentimes referred to as the Wasserburg , which simply describes what it is: A moated castle. Most famously, the Schloss was used to hold Sophie Dorothea of Hanover, wife of the future King George I of Great Britain, for three months in 1694 and 1695 before her trial over her affair with Count Philipp Christoph of Königsmarck. She was later moved to Schloss Ahlden where she lived for the last thirty years of her life becoming known as the 'Princess of Ahlden'. The history of Schloss Lauenau , however, goes back much further. The first castle on the same si...

Some villages have all the luck in the castle department... Example needed? Apelern near Hanover. Number of inhabitants: 1,500. Number of castles: Two. One of them we already previously talked about, Schloss von Hammerstein . The second one is - unsurprisingly considering the title of this post - Schloss von Münchhausen . Both castles have a ' von ' (of) in their name because they are simply named after the families that have been the owners of the estates for generations. If you have been following Confessions of a Castleholic  for the last couple of weeks, the name Münchhausen will already seem familiar to you - and if you remember a little more about the family history: This Schloss was once home to the White Line of the family yet is now owned by the Black Line. Already during the 14th century, Apelern was given as a fief by the Counts of Schaumburg to the Münchhausen family. It was Baron Börries of Münchhausen (1515–1583) who commissioned the current castle from ...

It's time to have a look at yet another castle of the Münchhausen family : This time around it is Schloss Schwedesdorf , one of the three castles in the village of Lauenau near Hanover. While they are most famous for their family member who liked to tell tall tales, the Münchhausens made a considerable fortune during the 16th and 17th century as leaders of mercenary forces fighting for various European rulers. With their new-found wealth, they became some of the most important castle builders of the Weser-Renaissance period. While the Black Line of the Münchhausens may have had more famous family members, the White Line was also quite successful - and it was a member of the White Line who built today's castle. Already since 1377, the Münchhausens held a fiefdom granted by the Counts of Schaumburg and Holstein in the municipality of Lauenau, at the time still known as Schwedesdorf. In 1594, three brothers divided the family's assets amongst themselves. While the olde...

Over the past five years Confessions of a Castleholic has existed, we have talked A LOT about castles built in the Weser-Renaissance style, a local variation of the architectural style of the 15th and 16th century, predominantly found in the area around the River Weser in central and northern Germany. While Schloss Hehlen is our seemingly gazillionth example of the Weser-Renaissance style, it is actually the first castle to feature the River Weser on a shot of it. The castle owes its existence to Count Fritz von der Schulenburg and his wife Ilse von Saldern. The castle on the banks of one of Northern Germany's most prominent rivers was built as one of the earliest examples of Weser-Renaissance style between 1570 and 1584.  Fritz, however, never lived in the castle but left it to his estranged wife Ilse. The pretty massive four-winged castle encloses a courtyard and features several towers. Still usually called  Wasserschloss   Hehlen (water castle),...

Münchhausen is a pretty famous name in Germany and all around the world. An old noble family from Lower Saxony who made their fortunes as leaders of mercenary forces for various European rulers, their name was immortalised by the tall tales of the 'Baron of the Lies' even though the historical example, Hieronymus of Münchhausen, wasn't very happy about the fictionalised version of his life. Before the 'Baron of the Lies' came along, the Münchhausen family was already a household name in Northern Germany for their plentiful building activity as they invested their new-found wealth as mercenary leaders of the 16th century in the construction of various castles to represent their new status, one of the examples being today's  Schloss Schwöbber . The Black Line of the Barons of Münchhausen first came into the possession of three feudal estates in the vicinity of today's  Schloss  in 1510. In 1564, they were given the permission to establish a noble residen...

Got some spare money lying around? For just two million euros this castle could be yours! 15 rooms, 900 square metres, almost 30,000 square metres of land. You should have some more cash stashed away somewhere though to spend on renovation works. That's the fate of Schloss Meysenbug near Hanover which is currently on sale ending about 150 years of family history. It was around the year 1867 that Carl Rivalier von Meysenbug, high ranking official in the Electorate of Hesse, built the current Tudor-style Schloss instead of a previous castle located on the same site that had suffered water damage. He had been given the property, previously owned by the noble family of Zerssen, by Elector and Landgrave Wilhelm II of Hesse in 1828. The son of a Huguenot family from France, Carl Rivalier had been ennobled in 1825 taking the name of an extinct Hessian noble family, Meysenbug, in addition to his own. He was later given the title of a Baron at the behest of Emperor Franz I of Aus...

What do Peter the Great, Friedrich the Great, several British Kings, German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and U.S. founding father Benjamin Franklin have in common? They all went to the tiny town of Bad Pyrmont to take the cure at some point in their lives. Especially during the 16th and 17th centuries, the spa town in today's Lower Saxony gained its reputation as a fashionable place for royal vacations. And so it won't come as a major surprise to you, that there is also a  Schloss  in Bad Pyrmont - the Bad standing for spa, not, well, bad. That castle, known as  Schloss Pyrmont , was the main destination of my latest castle adventure that also led me to some nine other castles which we will have a closer look at over the coming weeks and months. (So far,  you can already check out  Schloss von Hammerstein .) It was between the years 1525 and 1536 that Count Friedrich VI of Spiegelberg built the first fortification in Pyrmont. The fortified castle...