Confessions of a Castleholic

Not far from Schloss Gieboldehausen lies another little known castle built for the Lords of Minnigerode: Schloss Wollershausen . The moated castle in the tiny village of the same name was built between 1732 and 1735 by Ludwig von Minnigerode. While his family had owned the estate since 1398 when they received Wollershausen as a fiefdom from the Guelph rulers, Ludwig only got his hands on the property after an inheritance feud lasting over two decades a few years previously.  He decided to demolish a previous castle built around the year 1600 that had fallen into disrepair located not far from where the current castle stands. The construction of the new castle, however, turned out to be a costly endeavour as the Schloss stands in the middle of a marshland thus making it necessary to stablilise the underground by introducing large logs into the grounds. Nonetheless,  Schloss Wollershausen remained in the hands of the Minnigerode family until 1932 and ha...

In the middle of a park in the small town of Gieboldehausen near Göttingen stands a small castle by the same name. Schloss Gieboldehausen was built during the early 16th century and was known as " Haus auf dem Wall " (house on the rampart) for many years. The half-timbered beauty spot was built by the Lords of Minnigerode in 1528 on the site of an earlier castle and formed part of a larger estate.  The earliest known owner of the estate was Hans von Brudenhusen who sold it to Hans von Minnigerode the Younger in 1502. He served as local bailiff from 1521 to 1532. Sadly little else is publicly available about the castle's further history. The surrounding park was created in 1873 by the head of the Minnigerode at the time for his wife. The family remained the owners of Schloss Gieboldehausen until the 1970's when it was sold to the local municipality. Renovation and restoration works ensured and today the Schloss is used as a registrar's office and as a cu...