Richmond Castle

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Richmond Castle

Richmond Castle (English pronunciation: ˈɹɪtʃmənd ) was built from 1768 to 1769 for the princess and later Duchess Augusta , the wife of Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand , in the south of the city of Braunschweig . The builder was Carl Christoph Fleischer .

Name and pronunciation

The castle was named in memory of the English home of the princess, Richmond Park on the Thames . Karl Steinacker reported on the actual debate in Braunschweig as late as 1925: This Brunswick castle, previously always pronounced in French, received its name from Richmond Castle on the Thames [...] River Thames.

architecture

Wall and ceiling decorations

The castle grounds are along Wolfenbütteler Straße. The building in the Baroque style has a square positioned at a corner as a floor plan. The representative rooms can be found on the diagonal, to the side of them the private rooms with a mezzanine floor . The facade is divided into a plinth, pilaster and entablature area with parapet attic . Vaulted risalits and open stairs emphasize the respective ends of the main axis.

Compared to the original designs, the balustrade , stairs and roof have been changed over the years. For example, the architect Christian Gottlob Langwagen had a lantern with twelve windows installed on the roof in the central part of the building as early as 1785 to improve the incidence of light .

In 1925, the owner of the sheet metal factory F. Ch. Unger & Sohn , Bernhard Römmert, rented the castle and took care of the maintenance and care of the historic building, which was acquired by the city of Braunschweig in 1935 after Duke Ernst August had renounced its own use. The purchase was linked to the conditions that the palace would never be structurally changed and that the park would not be built on. The building has been used for public events since 1945. The 18th century paintings in the interior were restored from 1977 to 1981 .

Park

Line of sight from the castle in the direction of Spielmannsteich with pillar temple (2005)

The park was laid out together with the castle in 1768 in the style of a classic English landscape garden. Together with the Wörlitzer Park, it is one of the earliest landscape gardens in northern Germany. The park has been a landscape protection area since 1968 .

The design comes from one of the most renowned English garden architects Lancelot "Capability" Brown and is similar in structure and details to the royal Richmond Park in Kew (London). A special feature of the park are the large lines of sight that extend far into the country from the castle. Brown's intention was to create an ideal representation of a landscape painting that was as calm and picturesque as possible.

Over the years, the original design has also been changed here and adapted to the taste of the respective era. After 1785 a round temple was built at the foot of the castle and a hermitage was built on the southern slope , but by 1850 they no longer existed.

From 1830, Duke Wilhelm let court gardener Johann Christian Burmester significantly expand the park . More buildings were added between 1833 and 1838: the Ducal Villa and "Williams Castle" (no longer existent). In addition, the was Kennel pond created with a large resort island that could be achieved by a small Okerhafen from a boat.

The park was later extended towards the Charlottenhöhe. A round temple was erected there in 1842, which was located near the Antoinettenruh Castle , which was demolished in 1832 . In 1873 it was moved to the Okerufer below the castle, where it stood until the 1930s.

The park, which has been open to the public since 1964, now covers almost four hectares, was badly neglected after the end of the Second World War . It was therefore reconstructed from 1987 according to the original historical plans.

The area around the Spielmannsteich located below the castle was integrated into the park in terms of landscape gardening. In 2000, an eight-column round temple originally from Salzdahlum was donated to the city of Braunschweig, restored by the Braunschweig craftsmen and erected at the western end of the Spielmannsteich.

Others

The Gerstäcker Museum

The castle is not open every day and can only be visited as part of a guided tour. Only the representative rooms on the ground floor (the three on the diagonal line of sight and two smaller rooms on the garden side on both sides) are shown because the upper floor is privately inhabited.

The popular name Feldschlößchen gave the name for the Feldschlößchen brewery in 1871 . A Brunswick brewing journeyman took the name to Switzerland and founded in 1876 in Rheinfelden (Aargau) the brewery for Feldschlösschen today Feldschlösschen .

The Gerstäcker Museum , headed by Thomas Ostwald , was located in the former guard and kitchen house from 1982 to 2016 .

literature

Central room

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

  • Peter Bessin: The Regent as an Architect. Richmond Palace and the Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel pleasure palace buildings between 1680 and 1780 as a paradigm for princely self-expression . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-47904-2 ( Reconstruction of the arts . Volume 5).
  • Franz-Josef Christiani: Richmond Palace . Städtisches Museum, Braunschweig 1984 ( reports from the Städtisches Museum Braunschweig . Issue 45).
  • Frank Maier-Solgk: The English Embassy. Richmond, Brunswick . In: Die Gartenkunst 28 (2/2017), pp. 243–249.
  • Gustav-Adolf Raben: Richmond Braunschweig. Palace and park complex, their derivation from England . 2 volumes, dissertation at the University of Hamburg. Hamburg 1987.
  • Heinz-Joachim Tute, Gert-Dieter Ulferts, City of Braunschweig (ed.): Richmond. Images from 225 years of history . Meyer, Braunschweig 1993, ISBN 3-926701-18-8 .
  • Heinz-Joachim Tute, Marcus Köhler, Wolf-Dieter Schuegraf (Ed.): Garden art in Braunschweig. From the princely gardens of the Baroque to the public park of the Wilhelminian era . City library, Braunschweig 1989, ISBN 3-87884-037-3 ( Braunschweiger Werkstücke. 76 / Series A. Publications from the city archive and the city library . Volume 26).
  • City of Braunschweig, Department of Urban Greenery and Sport: The Richmond Park , leaflet, Braunschweig 2012.

Web links

Commons : Richmond Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Steinacker: "Salzdahlum, as well as other ducal summer castles and hunting lodges", page 192ff, quotation on p. 207. In: Wilhelm Görges , Ferdinand Spehr : "Patriotic stories and memorabilia of the regions of Braunschweig and Hanover". Reissued by F. Fuhse with the help of many experts . Volume 1, Braunschweig. Braunschweig 1925. Appelhans.


Coordinates: 52 ° 14 ′ 24 ″  N , 10 ° 31 ′ 36 ″  E