Confessions of a Castleholic

" The buzz for the crown doesn't end ", as Hereditary Prince Ernst August of Hanover expressed it. So good news for everyone who wanted to see the "Path to the Crown" exhibition at Schloss Marienburg but did not manage to do so in either 2014 or 2015: The exhibition focusing on the creation of the Kingdom of Hanover will remain open for another year until the end of 2016 due to high demand. In addition, there will be more concerts and other events at Schloss Marienburg than ever before.

Good news for everyone who wanted to see the "Path to the Crown" exhibition at Schloss Marienburg but did not manage to do so this year: The exhibition focusing on the creation of the Kingdom of Hanover will remain open for another year until the end of 2015 due to high demand. It has also been announced this week that the castle will also open to the general public in January and February of next year, traditionally the main residence had always been closed during the winter months. Until the beginning of October about 130,000 people had visited Schloss Marienburg between Hanover and Hildesheim as tourists who participated in guided tours, about half of them the special exhibition. Together with people visiting for an event and those who rented (parts of) the castle, there were about 200,000 visitors -  a new record. About 20 percent of the tourists came from abroad - mostly from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Russia and Poland - though the great majority wa...

This year does not only happen to be the 300th anniversary of the beginning of the personal union between the Hanoverian and British thrones, but also the 200th anniversary of the creation of the Kingdom of Hanover following the Congress of Vienna in 1814. To mark the second event, the Guelph family themselves are hosting a special exhibition at their ancestors' summer residence south of Hanover, Schloss Marienburg . As the name suggests, the "Path to the Crown" exhibition quite literally chronicles how the Electorate of Brunswick-Luneburg (or more informally Hanover) became the Kingdom of Hanover. The exhibition is a seperate guided tour in a part of the castle not usually featured in the normal tour. It leads to several - 14 if I recall correctly - rooms with various exhibits. The crown jewels, which are exhibited for the first time in former Guelph territory, can be seen at almost the end of the tour. As I knew both from people who had visited previously as...

On my quest to see all of this year's special exhibitions about the Guelph family in Hanover, Brunswick, Celle, Wolfenbüttel and wherever there else is one in Lower Saxony, I'm one step further after recently visiting the "Ready for the Island: The House of Brunswick-Lüneburg on the Path to London" exhibition at Schloss Celle . The display is part of the "When the Royals Came From Hanover" exhibition series also including two entitled "The Hanoverians on Britain's Throne 1714-1837" at the Landesmuseum and the museum of Schloss Herrenhausen as well as one called  "One Coach and Two Kingdoms: Hanover and Great Britain 1814-1837" . For many years, Celle used to be one of the most important residences of the Dukes of Brunswick-Luneburg as it was the seat of the subordinate Principality of Luneburg from 1378 until its end in 1705 when it merged with the Electorate of Brunswick-Luneburg. This year's special exhibition takes pl...

After "The Hanoverians on Britain's Throne 1714-1837" at the Lower Saxon State Museum and "One Coach and Two Kingdoms: Hanover and Great Britain 1814-1837" at the Historical Museum , I finally managed to catch the third of five of this year's Lower Saxony-based special exhibitions headlined "When the Royals Came From Hanover" about the Hanover-British personal union. The exhibition also entitled "The Hanoverians on Britain's Throne 1714-1837" is currently taking place at the museum of Schloss Herrenhausen . While the eastern wing of the museum displays the rising of the Guelph family on the basis of a number of paintings and other exhibits, the subterranean part focuses on the Baroque times in general. The Collection of Wallmoden - highlight and apparently the actual special exhibition - is located in the third show room of the museum. In addition to a large number of statues, which are usually on permanent loan to the Archae...

The German state of Lower Saxony basically consists of the former territories of the Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe, the Duchy of Braunschweig and the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg as well as, the biggest part of it, the Kingdom of Hanover. Thus it is no surprise that Lower Saxony is commemorating the 300th anniversary of the beginning of the personal union between the Kingdom of Hanover and the the Kingdom of Great Britain with various exhibition this year. (More about the various exhibitions in Castle & Co's previous post about the " One Coach and Two Kingdoms: Hanover and Great Britain 1814-1837 " exhibition.) The biggest one of all the exhibitions is the one at the Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum in Hanover. It has already been about two weeks since I visited but if I recall correctly, it took me about two and a half hours to view it and I didn't even have the audio guide with me. Just like the one at the rebuilt Schloss Herrenhausen , the exhibition at t...

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...