Friedrichstein Castle (Neuwied)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Friedrichstein Castle
Front view
Memorial stone at the entrance to Fahr

The Friedrich Flintlock is a missing Castle in Neuwied . Construction work on the castle, located in what is now the Fahr district, directly on the Rhine , began in 1645/46, i.e. before the city of Neuwied was founded. The builder was Count Friedrich III. to Wied .

construction

For the construction of the baroque palace , the Hohe Ley, upstream from Fahr, was partially blown up. Work on the roughly 80-meter-long but relatively narrow building began around 1646. The two-storey building with a mansard roof had 18 axes on the front facing the Rhine and two axes on the gable side. The stones for the construction came from nearby quarries.

The castle was only used for residential and representative purposes. Count Friedrich resided there for the first few years. Almost simultaneously, he let the current castle park in Neuwied one another castle building. This led to financial hardship for the count and ultimately to an uprising by the serf peasants known as the Wiedischer Peasant War . In 1663 the farmers were obliged to do 52 frontages annually for a period of 100 years and they had to pay for their previous rights, such as collecting beechnuts or cutting wood. As a result, the farmers cursed the castle and so it was named the Devil's Castle . It is not known whether the castle was ever completed.

history

Since Count zu Wied moved to his new castle in Neuwied at the beginning of the 18th century, he looked for a different use for this building. In 1705 it served as a military hospital for the Duke of Marlborough's troops . From 1745 to 1762 a breeding and poor house as well as a spinning mill with cloth weaving were located there. From 1762 it was used by a paint factory for the manufacture of paints, including Neuwieder Grün and Berliner Blau .

In 1780 the privy councilor von Stael wanted to buy the building and set up a religious house for the lodge and the administration of a widow's fund for the lodge brothers and an educational institution for needy orphans. In order to raise money for the purchase, a Banque de Fortune was founded, which was popularly known as Neuwieder Lotto , and the castle became a casino that was also very well known in France. This company went bankrupt in 1781.

During the First Coalition War , the house was a French garrison. Around 1800 a counterfeiting shop was set up there, around which a fabulous story has grown.

In 1806 the roof was torn down and the castle left to decay. Since then, it has been called Caesar's Ruin , as a member of the prince's chamber named Caesar supposedly sold the material to replenish the city's treasury. Other names for the castle were Teufelshaus , because it was supposed to be haunted in it, and Hohleiche , since a court oak used to stand here. The ruins were blown up in 1868 during the construction of the right Rhine stretch . Today only a window ledge on a rock reminds of the castle.

During the War of Liberation, several thousand soldiers crossed the Rhine at the Friedrichstein ruins on January 1, 1814.

literature

  • The Rhine: History and legends of its castles, abbeys, monasteries and cities / from WO von Horn (W. Oertel) Wiesbaden: Niedner [u. a.], 1881 pp. 381–389 [1]

Web links

Commons : Schloss Friedrichstein  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.neuwied-feldkirchen.net/fahr/teufelsschloss/teufelsschloss.html
  2. ↑ http://www.dilibri.de/rlb/content/pageview/557366?&query=Schloss%20Friedrichstein

Coordinates: 50 ° 26 ′ 45 ″  N , 7 ° 25 ′ 30 ″  E