Willingshausen Castle

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Willingshausen Castle

The Willingshausen Castle , also Schwertzell MOORISH Castle called, is a mansion in the style of a simple palace complex with attached Good and English landscape garden on the northern outskirts of Willingshausen in the Schwalm-Eder district in Hesse .

Building description

The castle is a three-storey baroque building of about 23 × 14.5 meters floor area on a massive basement base, with two attics under the hipped roof and one on the west side, off center, half protruding circular stair tower and a two-storey Renaissance - Erker in the two Upper floor on its southwest corner. The two lower floors, the stair tower and the second floor on the west side to the left of the stair tower are solidly built and plastered except for the corner blocks . The rest of the second floor is made of half-timbering and plastered on the eaves side, and wood shingled on the gable side . The second floor protrudes slightly on a bulge profile. The considerable corner bay window is made of stone with decorative processing on the lower floor and half-timbered on the upper floor.

The window layout is irregular, with large individual windows on the ground floor and predominantly, but not exclusively, coupled windows on the upper floors. Only on the west side are the windows profiled ornamentally, on the ground floor with triangular gables, on the upper floors with segmented gable crowns. The portal is to the right of the stair tower, is round-arched and passed over by a segment-arched skylight . The portal leads into a hall in the middle of the building, from which the stair tower with its spiral staircase is accessible. The windows in the stair tower are bevelled, and on the front of the stair tower there is a coat of arms stone from 1496 with the coat of arms of Johann von Schwertzell (before 1463–1530) and his wife Timeless von Hattenbach .

The bay window in the south-west corner rests on two triangular consoles placed across corners , which in turn have consoles decorated with shells and foliage. The bay window has two windows on each of the two floors and one window on each side. Under the windows on the first floor there are four stone coats of arms: those of Schwertzell and the Rabe von Pappenheim on the front, and probably those of Boyneburg and von Berlepsch on the sides . The inscription above the left window: "IS REPAIRED IN THE YEAR MDCXCVIII" probably refers to parts of the bay window and the trussed parts of the second floor.

There is a small on the south side of the ground floor bow window , right next to a round portal to the basement.

Surroundings

Immediately to the northwest are the farm buildings of the estate. The village church, built in 1511 on the basis of an older chapel and still under the patronage of the von Schwertzell family, stands immediately south between the manor buildings and the road to Merzhausen .

In the south-west is the palace garden, and this is followed by the tree-lined palace park, which extends around 300 meters to the north.

history

The Lords of Schwertzell were first mentioned in a document in the 13th century. They were early settled in Willingshausen and acquired in 1489 the local jurisdiction of Damian / Thamme of Weitershausen to Merzhausen, who de jure as hersfeldisches , de facto landgräflich-Hessian had held fiefs. At first they lived in a small castle in what is now the castle park. In the 16th century, Johann (before 1463–1530), Georg (before / around 1525–1578) and Johann (1549–1614) built today's castle as the new ancestral seat of their family. It is not known whether the coat of arms from 1496 on the stair tower documents the start of construction or was later moved there from another location and installed.

During the Thirty Years War the castle was partially destroyed and looted. In 1698 it was partially renewed and the half-timbered area added to the south in order to offer more living space. During the Seven Years' War , the castle's inventory was looted again. Wilhelm Grimm had been friends with the Schwertzell family since 1810 and regularly stopped at Willingshausen Castle on the journey from Kassel or to Marburg. Wilhelmine von Schwertzell collected fairy tales from the Schwalm for the Brothers Grimm and maintained a lively correspondence with them.

In 1824 the painter Gerhardt Wilhelm von Reutern met for the first time in Willingshausen Palace , who from 1815 onwards was repeatedly a guest in Willingshausen to convalescence after the loss of his right arm in the Battle of Leipzig and had married Charlotte von Schwertzell in 1820, and the art professor Ludwig Emil Grimm . The castle soon became the first meeting point and founding place of the Willingshausen painters' colony .

The members of the von Schwertzell family were buried in a mausoleum in the English Garden, about 200 m north-west of the castle.

Today the management of the agricultural goods of the von Schwertzell family is located in the castle. The Willingshausen manor was an independent manor district of the von Schwertzell zu Willingshausen family until it was incorporated into Willingshausen in 1928 ; in 1885 it comprised 775 hectares with 94 hectares of arable land, 38 hectares of meadows and 641 hectares of forest.

literature

  • Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 2nd Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 1995, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 , p. 166.
  • Friedhelm Häring, Hans J. Klein (ed.): DuMont travel guide Hessen. DuMont Buchverlag, 8th edition, Cologne 1988, pp. 158–159
  • Eduard Brauns: Hiking and travel guide through North Hesse and Waldeck. A. Bernecker Verlag, Melsungen 1971, p. 202
  • Greaves: Upper Hesse, Kurhessen Waldeck. Verlag Karl Thieming AG, Munich 1981,?. Edition, p. 162

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Merzhäuser Strasse 9
  2. ↑ The Landgrave Hessian councilor Thamme von Weitershausen was married to Lisa von Rückershausen zu Merzhausen and therefore inherited the town of Merzhausen around 1470. ( http://forum.ahnenforschung.net/showthread.php?t=84911 )
  3. ↑ In 1432, Landgrave Ludwig I of Hesse was appointed hereditary guardian of Hersfeld Abbey by Abbot Albrecht von Hersfeld and in 1434 he was enfeoffed by Abbot Albrecht with the four Schwalm villages Willingshausen, Merzhausen, Zella and Loshausen.
  4. ^ Wilhelm Schoof : On the genesis of the Grimm fairy tales . Publishing house Dr. Ernst Hausnedell & Co., Hamburg, 1959, p. 90 f.

Coordinates: 50 ° 51 ′ 4.8 ″  N , 9 ° 11 ′ 49 ″  E