Falkenberg Castle (Wabern)

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Falkenberg Castle

The Falkenberg Castle is a former noble residence in Falkenberg , in the municipality of Wabern in the Schwalm-Eder district in northern Hesse . It is located on the south-eastern outskirts, below the Schlossberg, in the middle of a spacious estate , the former Falkenberg manor.

The attachment

The current castle dates mainly from the years 1560 to 1778. It is a powerful, in the floor plan irregular construction with two half-timbered shot in jettying on a massive basement, with hipped roof and the building far superior solid-stone tower. The main wing is approx. 27 m long and 12 m wide; the eastern, courtyard-facing facade protrudes about a meter in its northern part. On the west side facing the castle park with pond and fountain, the square stair tower is integrated into the main wing in the northern part. The seven-story stone tower rises two stories above the roof ridge of the castle. It ends with a wooden eighth floor with an open viewing platform under a wooden tent roof . At the north end of the main wing, at a right angle to the east, there is an equally high side wing with a floor area of ​​around 12 m × 12 m. At the south end there is also an east-facing, about 1.5 m protruding side elevation . On the park side, in the southern part, almost in the middle, a magnificent extension, about 7 m wide, resting on wooden pillars with a half-timbered gable protrudes about 3 m to the west.

The baroque garden sculptures of the four seasons date from around 1760, the fountain figure of Neptune probably from 1616.

The castle courtyard in the east and south is surrounded by farm buildings, some of which are now stables and some are residential buildings.

history

The castle, or a predecessor of the same, the so-called lower castle, was built between 1513 and 1516 by the last Herr von Hebel , with whose death in 1521 his line of men died out. The castle was square with a large vaulted cellar and a round stair tower . The Lords of Falkenberg , from whom von Hebel branched off in the middle of the 13th century, inherited the lower castle and moved down to the new castle from their old Falkenberg castle , the so-called upper castle on the mountain cone above the village, which had been destroyed and rebuilt several times . The upper castle was abandoned, soon fell into disrepair and was demolished after 1621.

The Falkenbergs expanded the lower castle into a spacious castle in 1560. The northeast wing was added at a right angle to the existing residential castle, giving it an L-shaped floor plan, and the round stair tower was demolished and the square stone tower was built on the park side instead. The large rooms on three floors with beamed ceilings on wooden pillars and the fireplace on the ground floor originate from this expansion phase . At the same time, the castle was fortified with extensive bastions , some of which are still visible in the south or are built into the stables there.

The male line of the Falkenberg family died out in 1613, and their property, including the castle in Falkenberg, fell to Landgrave Moritz von Hessen-Kassel as a settled fiefdom . He had the castle extended to the south and the beautiful chimneys built in on the 1st and 2nd floors. The bastions were partially removed again. In 1616 Moritz gave the two villages Falkenberg and Rockshausen and the Falkenberg Castle to his second wife Juliane and his youngest son Moritz (1614-1633).

General Tilly is said to have lived in Falkenberg in 1631, Johann von Werth in 1637 , and in 1640 the village and castle were set on fire by imperial troops.

After the early death of Moritz d. In 1633 the castle and village of Falkenberg passed to his eldest brother, Hermann , regent of the partially sovereign Landgraviate of Hessen-Rotenburg created by Landgrave Moritz in 1627 . The castle then remained the property of the Landgraves of Hesse-Rotenburg for almost 200 years. It was badly damaged a second time in 1762, during the Seven Years' War , and a third time in a fire in 1771. In the years 1775–1778 there was a new extension in the form of the stately half-timbered extension resting on wooden columns on the park side.

The last Landgrave of Hessen-Rotenburg, Victor Amadeus , left (or sold) the castle with the Falkenberg and Rockshausen estates in 1829 to his half-brother, Oberforstmeister Ernst von Blumenstein (1796–1875). Ernst von Blumenstein sold Falkenberg Castle and Estate in 1872, three years before his death, to the musician and landowner Johann Ludwig Gebhard von Alvensleben . Between 1899 and 1910 the owner changed hands six times. Baron Franz Werner von Droste-Hülshoff was the owner from 1910 to 1919 . He was followed by Privy Councilor von Oswald zu Burgwedel from 1919 to 1933, who had the property completely renovated. In 1933 the castle and manor came into the possession of the Kassel industrialist Oscar Robert Henschel . After the devastating air raid on Kassel on October 22, 1943, the Henschel family lived in the castle until the end of the 1950s. In 1960 the “Hessische Heimstätte” settlement company acquired the property. In 1967 the estate was turned into two full-time farmers, and the castle was sold and transformed by the new owner into a hotel and restaurant "Schloss Falkenberg". The castle gastronomy only lasted until 1978.

Since 1978 the association "Hope for You" with its diaconal institutions has owned the castle and the surrounding courtyard.

Coordinates: 51 ° 4 ′ 10 ″  N , 9 ° 23 ′ 54 ″  E

Web links

Aerial photo and information on accommodation options at www.gruppenunterkuenfte.de ,
Photos of Falkenberg Castle and information on the renovation at www.energieberatung-kuehne.eu

literature

  • Eduard Brauns: hiking guide through Upper Hesse and Waldeck. A. Bernecker, Melsungen 1971, pp. 112-113
  • Eduard Brauns: Falkenberg castle ruins near Wabern. The history of the old upper castle and the new lower castle. In: Neue Hessische Zeitung 86 (1976), No. 44, November 3, 1976
  • Werner Ide: From Adorf to Zwesten. Local history pocket book for the Fritzlar-Homberg district. A. Bernecker, Melsungen, 1972, pp. 97-98.
  • Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 3. Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2000, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 (p. 89)
  • Reinhard Hootz: Falkenberg Castle and Palace. Supplement to Dehio-Gall, Handbook of German Art Monuments. ZHG 67, 1956
  • Philipp Losch: Falkenberg, In: Hessenland 39, 1927
  • 750 years of Falkenberg - Chronicle of a village , Wartberg Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen, 2000
  • Georg Landau: Description of the Electorate of Hesse. Fischer, Kassel, 1842 (pp. 255–256)

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ The upper castle was probably built by Konrad von Hebel around the middle of the 13th century , and around 1270 his son Otto I took the surname "von Falkenberg", while Konrad's brother Heinrich, who continued to live in Hebel , took the name " of lever "maintained. At the beginning of the 14th century, the Falkenbergers split up with the three sons of Otto I into the three lines of Falkenberg, Densberg and Herzberg . The Falkenberg line was the last of the three branches to go out in 1613.
  2. ↑ Hence the “warping” on the east facade.
  3. ↑ Ernst von Blumenstein was the son of Landgrave Karl Emanuel von Hessen-Rotenburg from his extramarital relationship with Lucie Juliane Struve.