Schloss Alme
Castle hunting tip #5438: Spring (when the trees don’t have their leaves yet) is the best time of the year to see castles that aren’t open to the public while the weather is often warm and sunny. Case in point: Schloss Alme I saw during my most recent castle adventure. While we can trace back the history of the Schloss to the first half of the 18th century, several others castles had been located in the small village of the same name, which today forms part of the city Brilon, as early as the 14th century. The current Schloss Alme owes its existence to Dietrich Adam von Meschede, who demolished some parts of an older Burg located on the same site in favour of the new Baroque-style castle and integrated other parts into the new structure built likely built between 1719 and 1744.
Dietrich Adam, however, had no male-line heirs to leave his new castle to. After he left it to his second wife Franziska Dorothea, it later passed via his oldest daughter to the Barons of Bocholtz in the form his grandson Theodor Werner. He came into possession of Schloss Alme in 1768. Unfortunately little is known about its further history. The Barons of Bocholtz remained the owners of the Schloss until 1912 when the last member of the family line descendent from the Meschedes sold it to the Counts of Spee, who continue to live at Schloss Alme to this day.
