Confessions of a Castleholic

Photo: Historisches Museum Hannover For some strange reason, the Guelph family does seem to have a special penchant for having things happen to them in years ending with '14. In 1714 the Hanoverian line of the family became Kings of Great Britain and Duke Anton Ulrich of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel died, in 1814 they became Kings of Hanover and in 1914 Prince Ernst-August IV was christened. To mark all those occasions, there are no less than eight exhibitions happening in Lower Saxon this year. Headlined "When the Royals Came From Hanover", five of those exhibitions are dedicated to the personal union between the Electorate and later Kingdom of Hanover as well as the Kingdom of Great Britain, which lasted for 123 years between 1714 and 1837 when Queen Victoria ascended to the British throne while her uncle Ernst-August II became the new King of Hanover. While both the exhibitions at the Lower Saxon State Museum and the museum of the rebuilt Schloss Herrenhausen...

Castle, abbey, even Imperial Abbey. All of those terms would be correct descriptions of what we are simply going to call Schloss Corvey , the home of the Dukes of Ratibor and Princes of Corvey - more on their family later - in today's post. The Schloss , which might become a UNESCO World Heritage Site this year, boasts a rich history going back to no other than Charlemagne (747/8-814) himself. It was the King of the Franks who firstly had the idea to found a monastery in the recently conquered area to missionise the local heathens though his plan was only realised by his son, Louis the Pious. In 815, Louis announced his plans for the foundations of an abbey east of the Weser river. A year later the first monks arrived from Corbie Abbey in Picardy to a site called Hethis where they founded a new monastery. The monastery was given the name Nova Corbeia , 'new Corbie', a name that would later evolve into 'Corvey'. However due to unfavourable location, the mon...

Firstly mentioned as Widenkindigstein in 1187, the origins of Schloss Wittgenstein located in the south-Westphalian town of Bad Laasphe were owned by the House of Battenberg who tried to secure their holdings on the upper Lahn river with the help of the castle. In 1190 Count Werner I of Battenberg and Wittgenstein signed a contract with the Archbishop of Mainz, Konrad I of Wittelsbach, to sell the castle to the Archbishopric though it was agreed that the castle would be given back to Count Werner as a fiefdom. However, the Archbishop failed to pay the whole sum of money promised to the count and so the castle remained in his family's hands though not for long. On September 2nd, 1223, Count Werner I's three sons, Werner II, Widekind I and Hermann, sold the castle to the new Archbishop of Mainz, Siegfried II of Eppstein. In turn the sons received Wittgenstein castle back as a fiefdom.  About 15 years later the historical House of Battenberg - which shouldn't be confu...

Schloss Nettlingen located in a small village by the same name in southern Lower Saxony was built by Kurt von Salder around 1570. The Salder family, who changed their name to Saldern during the 17th century, had been present in Nettlingen since the 14th century.  However, the castle was sold to the brewer guild of Hildesheim in 1611 after five years of negotiations. Yet another year later, the guild sold the Schloss to Arend of Wobersnow for 28,000 Reichsthaler . The Landdrost (an official with local jurisdiction) Wobersnow had made a lot of money when he, as coin commissioner of of Duke Friedrich Ulrich of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, minted inferior coins but he was found out and, in 1620, it was Nettlingen where Wobersnow flew to when being persecuted by the imperial chamber. Somehow the Salder family apparently got the Schloss back after that though it also seems that the Bennigsen family owned it at one point or the other after the Wobersnows. Whoever owned the castle...

Above the town of Bad Berleburg lies a Schloss by the very same name (minus the 'Bad' part) that has been in the possession of the (ancestors of the) Sayn-Wittgenstein family for more than 700 years. It is actually one of the few castles with a similar age that have been owned by the same family for the entire time of its existence. The House of Sayn-Wittgenstein was created through the marriage of heiress Countess Adelheid of Wittgenstein and Count Salentin of Sayn-Homburg of the House of Sponheim in 1345. The two counties of Sayn and Wittgenstein, however, only merged some 40 years later when their son inherited them both. Later the family split into three main branches, the Houses of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn and Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein. Not too hard to guess, it is the first and genealogically most senior one of the three branches who owns Schloss Berleburg today. Originally co-owned by Count Siegfried I of Wittgenstein and Adolf I of...

"Inspired by the dramatic topography of its site, the Hercules monument and water features of the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe created by the Landgrave Karl of Hesse-Kassel from 1689 combine in an outstanding demonstration of man’s mastery over nature. The monumental display of rushing water from the Octagon crowned by the massive Hercules statue via the Vexing Grotto and Artichoke Basin with their hydro pneumatic acoustic effects, Felsensturz Waterfall and Giant’s Head Basin down the Baroque Cascade to Neptune’s Basin and on towards the crowning glory of the Grand Fountain, a 50 metre high geyser that was the tallest in the world when built in 1767, is focused along an east-west axis terminating in the centre of the city of Kassel. Complemented by the wild Romantic period waterfalls, rapids and cataracts created under Karl’s great-grandson the Elector Wilhelm I of Hesse, as part of the 18th century landscape in the lower part of the Bergpark , the whole composition is an outs...

The history of the domain of Schloss Derneburg dates back almost one thousand years. Originally built as a fortified castle, the main building became the manor house of Margrave Herman II of Winzenburg and his brother Heinrich, vassals of Count Burchard I of Locum, during the 12th century. However, Hermann feuded with Burchard and in 1130 arranged to have him murdered. Unfortunately for Hermann, his enemy was a close friend of Holy Roman Emperor Lothar III and the latter demanded that the Winzenburg family give up their properties as punishment. Schloss Derneburg , located in a Lower Saxon village by the same name, thus came into the hands of the Bishopric of Hildesheim, which was advised to open a religious sanctuary at the castle and thus the castle building remained in the hands of religious orders for the following 700 years. After the castle had been handed over to the Bishop of Hildesheim in 1143, the first Augustine nuns from the nearby abbey of Holle moved into the Schl...