Keudell Castle
| Keudell Castle | ||
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 Keudell Castle, now a local museum |
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| Alternative name (s): | Keudelisches Haus | |
| Creation time : | around 1650 | |
| Castle type : | Mansion | |
| Conservation status: | museum | |
| Standing position : | Local nobility | |
| Construction: | Sandstone, half-timbered | |
| Place: | Wanfried | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 10 '59.9 " N , 10 ° 10' 9.8" E | |
| Height: | 170 m above sea level NN | |
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The Keudellsche Schloss , also called Keudelisches Haus , is a former castle in the small town of Wanfried in the Werra-Meißner district in northern Hesse . Today it houses the Wanfried Local History Museum and the documentation center on post-war history .
history
The predecessor
The approximately 20 × 17 m building (Marktstrasse 2, corner of Martinsgasse) at the northern end of the old town center, more of a stately home than a castle, is named after the von Keudell family , who were first mentioned in 1227, but probably as early as the 12th century Century in the Werra valley and most recently had its headquarters in Schwebda . However, they were not the builders of the fortified house, which was built on this site around the year 1000 and was first mentioned in a document in 1334 as "castrum Wenefrydin" and was owned by the Preus family (or Preuse, Preusen) at that time long-established and respected noble family in Wanfried. In addition to their castle seat on the predecessor castle of today's castle , the Preus also owned a noble-free Vorwerk at the Untertor, where they lived. In 1409, this Vorwerk and the associated farm buildings came to the Keudell through the purchase of Eckard Preus. It became the headquarters of the Wanfrieder branch line of the Keudells and has been called the Keudelische Haus or Keudelschloss ever since.
After the elevation of Wanfried to town by Landgrave Moritz in 1608, the building was strengthened like a fortress in the years 1609–1619. Nevertheless, like the castle and 182 other houses in the small town, it was burned down by Tilly's troops in the Thirty Years' War on June 25, 1626 . Only a narrow arched cellar leading in an elongated direction to Marktstrasse remained.
Today's house
Only after the end of the war was a new stately mansion built on the cellar walls, with a solid ground floor made of red sandstone, a half-timbered upper floor and two attic floors in framed construction , the latter under a half- hip roof . A bay window on the south side of the upper floor and two dwelling houses on the east side that almost reached the roof ridge , also with half-hip roofs, gave the house an unmistakable appearance.
In 1765 at the latest, the house had passed into the possession of the wealthy Uckermann family, who had come to Wanfried at the end of the Thirty Years War and built an unusually large and representative trading yard (today's town hall) on Marktstrasse around 1660/70 .
On the night of April 6th to 7th, 1878, a major fire destroyed all farm buildings in the courtyard, but the fire brigade was able to prevent the flames from spreading to neighboring houses in Martinsgasse and Keudell Castle itself. In the same year the captain and royal Prussian chamberlain Carl Xaver von Scharfenberg, who at the same time also acquired the former Landgrave's palace at the other end of the village, bought the building. During the renovation that followed soon afterwards, the half-timbered floors were given a facade made of Greppin clinker between the half-timbered, which gives the building its striking appearance. The burned down farm buildings were not rebuilt.
In 1888, Carl Xaver von Scharfenberg and his family moved to Gut Kalkhof about 1.5 km east of Wanfried. Keudell Castle was initially a private school, after the First World War a private school and country school home and finally, rented by the city, until 1960 a municipal secondary school . After a new school had been built, the city bought the building in 1960 and had the inside rebuilt: the city library, a reading room, the office of the tourist office and apartments were built.
Todays use
20 years later there was another change of use: On November 7, 1981, the Wanfrieder Heimatmuseum, which had been housed in the town hall since it was founded in 1924, moved into Keudell Castle. It provides an insight into the city's history, the settlement history of the region and the Weser - Werra - shipping . It also shows an old farmer's room with traditional cloakroom and peasant painting , picture weaving , Werra ceramics and a geological section with characteristic rocks of the Werra landscape.
Since 1992, the Keudell Castle has also been home to the Documentation Center on German Post-War History, which provides information on the situation on the former inner-German border with a library of more than 3000 publications, an archive and video films. In particular, it is dedicated to the situation in the former GDR , but also to the time after the opening of the border. A model of the village of Großburschla and other exhibits illustrate the former border security systems . The " Wanfrieder Agreement " of September 17, 1945 is also dealt with in detail with text, photo and film material .
In 2016, part of the house became refugee accommodation .
At the beginning of 2019, the city of Wanfried sold the building to a private person who wants to convert it into a seminar and guest house. The local history museum and the documentation center were the last of the previous users to move out in February 2020; the refugee accommodation on the 2nd floor had already been vacated in late summer 2019.
Web links
Notes and individual references
- ↑ The Preuse family probably died out in the male line in 1465.
- ↑ http://keudelstein.de/hauptseite/lexikon/
- ↑ * November 28, 1849 in Bremen, † April 17, 1922 in Wanfried; Long-term city councilor, honorary citizen of Wanfrieder in 1919.
- ↑ In 1958 the middle school with 237 students in six classes was completely inadequately housed in three buildings on the formerly Keudell property. Two classes were located in the main building, the “Keudell Castle”, two in the so-called “studio building” and two in the converted former “horse stable”. ( http://wiki.cdu-wanfried.de/index.php?title=1958 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove it Note. )
- ↑ http://museen-in-hessen.de/museum/?id=122
- ↑ The castle has been sold: the new owner wants to set up a seminar and guest house, Werra-Rundschau, January 25, 2019
- ↑ Press release of the city of Wanfried from February 21, 2020: A museum moves out - Keudell's castle soon to be vacated
