Michelfeld Castle

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Castle in Michelfeld

The Michelfeld Castle in the district Michelfeld the community Angelbachtal in the Rhein-Neckar-Kreis ( Baden-Wuerttemberg ) is a moated castle of the Lords of Gemmingen back of the 16th century. The mansion of the Gemmingen-Michelfeld line, which had already died out in the male line in 1613 , then fell to other family lines several times and was repeatedly empty for a long time. The castle was renewed in 1665–67 and 1758–60 and rebuilt in 1873. After the Gemmingen family moved out in 1911, it was used for different purposes and was often empty for a long time. In 1969 the municipality bought it. In 1975 the castle came into the possession of the Jäger family, who renovated the castle and lived there for a long time. Since a recent renovation a few years ago, the castle and the neighboring farmyard have been used as an event location at Landgut Schloss Michelfeld with a ballroom, gastronomy and overnight accommodation. The castle, which is surrounded by a castle park, is a protected architectural monument .

history

There is hardly any documentary information about the medieval castle in Michelfeld, which was located in the upper part of the later castle garden and of which no remains are visible today. The castle was certainly not a representative complex, but probably just a larger, solid house surrounded by an earth wall. In 1390, Count Eberhard von Katzenelnbogen handed over the Hessian landgrave fiefs that had previously been in the possession of Wilhelm von Michelfeld, including the castle, to Wilhelm von Münchingen. In 1449 Hans von Neuenstein owned the castle that he had received from his father-in-law. In 1460, Keckhans von Gemmingen (1431–1487), who was married to a Neuenstein daughter, acquired part of Michelfeld. In 1500 it is reported that the so-called in the old castle hall house was, carrying the Gemmingensche coat of arms and the names of the Landgrave of Hesse, and perhaps the first residence of the line Gemmingen-Michel Field was in place.

Keckhans' son Orendel von Gemmingen (1464–1520) came into the possession of all of Michelfeld in 1508. He and his son Weirich von Gemmingen (1493-1548) left to 1522 in the swampy terrain below the ancient castle, a moated castle as a timber-framed building built on wooden piles. The Gemmingen-Michelfeld line died out with Weirich von Gemmingen (1575-1613) in the male line. Then Reinhard von Gemmingen (1576–1635), who had bought Hornberg Castle in Neckarzimmern in 1612 and founded the Gemmingen-Hornberg line, entered the fiefdom after lengthy negotiations. He lived alternately in Michelfeld and on the Hornberg, but fled from the plague to Sinsheim in 1627 . The castle in Michelfeld was finally empty in the Thirty Years War from 1630 and was destroyed in 1634 or 1635.

A few years after the Thirty Years' War, Johann Reinhard von Gemmingen (1632–1678) took over the property in Michelfeld and had a new moated castle built on the site of the destroyed one from 1665 to 1667, this time already having a stone base. About the construction one learns that each subject had to do 12 days of forced labor, that the wood in the Michelfelder forest was insufficient and therefore 50 four-horse and 50 two-horse loads of wood were brought from outside, that 20 loads of lime, 12,000 bricks and 10,000 bricks were used . Johann Reinhard left only one underage son, Hans Christoph von Gemmingen (1677–1752). The latter remained single and was a councilor in Vienna, but became feeble-minded in old age, so that his property came under compulsory administration by the knight's canton.

The Michelfelder family then came to Ludwig von Gemmingen-Hornberg (1694–1771), who was Vice President in Celle and commissioned the Celle master builder Johann Friedrich Borchmann with a reconstruction plan for the Michelfelder Castle. In 1758/59 the castle was torn down to the stone base and rebuilt as a two-story stone structure with a stone bridge from the castle garden. In 1760 construction work took place again on the upper floor when some rooms were furnished there.

In 1771 Ernst von Gemmingen-Hornberg (1759-1813) inherited the Michelfelder estates. He was the composer and the last director of the knight canton of Kraichgau . His tomb is preserved in Michelfeld. He was followed as landlord in Michelbach by his son Ludwig von Gemmingen (1793-1858), who died childless. His nephew August von Gemmingen (1829–1909) took over the succession and had the castle modernized in 1873 according to plans by Theodor Armbruster from Offenburg, which essentially gave it its present form with a flatter roof and a glazed inner courtyard. The von Gemmingen family lived in the castle until 1911.

Michelfeld Castle 1982

During the First World War , the castle was used as a military hospital at times , then as a prison camp. In 1934/35 it was accommodation for the Reich Labor Service when they carried out drainage work in the Eberbachtal. During the Second World War , the castle was largely unused and after the war it was occupied by displaced persons and refugees; in the early 1970s it was inhabited by guest workers .

In 1969 the municipality acquired the castle and the castle garden as well as the nearby, also listed administrative building from the 18th century. The office building was demolished when the thoroughfare was modernized in 1970. Advocates were also found for the demolition of the desolate palace, which was no longer habitable in 1974. The municipality had a cost estimate drawn up for a renovation in line with listed buildings, but felt unable to bear the costs. In the end, the building was not maintained at all.

The castle and part of the castle garden finally came into the possession of the Schäfer family in 1975, who had the castle renovated and lived in for a long time before they recently redesigned it together with the adjoining farmyard into the event location Landgut Schloss Michelfeld .

description

portal

A bridge leads over the now dry moat to the two-story baroque building with six axes . Above the portal is a cartouche with the family coat of arms of those of Gemmingen.

Inside, a flight of stairs lit by a glass roof above the inner courtyard leads to the upper floor. The staircase and the arcade on the upper floor are extremely representative. The roof attachment was later built in the classical style, it is symmetrical to the central axis of the house.

In the immediate vicinity of the castle is the large associated farm yard, which today houses guest rooms, ballroom and catering. There are also high-quality event and guest rooms available in the castle building itself.

literature

  • Carl Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig Stocker : Family chronicle of the barons of Gemmingen , Heidelberg 1895
  • Adolf von Oechelhäuser : The art monuments of the districts of Sinsheim, Eppingen and Wiesloch (Heidelberg district) , Tübingen 1909, pp. 29–30. ( Digitized version )
  • Angelbachtal community (ed.): Michelfeld. The village and its history , Angelbachtal 1990, pp. 120–124.
  • Hartmut Riehl: Castles and palaces in the Kraichgau . Regional culture publishing house, Ubstadt-Weiher 1997, ISBN 3-929366-51-7 , pp. 17-18.
  • Peter Schubart: Two castles threatened with extinction in Angelbachtal, Rhein-Neckar-Kreis. In: Denkmalpflege in Baden-Württemberg , 3rd year 1974, issue 3, pp. 28–31 ( PDF with pictures of the unrenovated castle 1974)

Web links

Commons : Schloss Michelfeld  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heimatbuch Michelfeld 1990, p. 120. Biographical data of the owners according to Stocker 1895. The biographical data and the complicated succession of ownership of the Gemmingens in Michelfeld from the 15th to the 20th century are only briefly and dubiously reproduced in the Michelfeld Heimatbuch. For the names and dates of life, preference is given to Stocker, to whom Oechelhäuser also refers.
  2. ↑ Heimatbuch Michelfeld 1990, p. 121. Life data of the owners according to Stocker 1895.
  3. ↑ Heimatbuch Michelfeld 1990, p. 121. Life data of the owners according to Stocker 1895.
  4. ↑ Heimatbuch Michelfeld 1990, p. 121. Life data of the owners according to Stocker 1895.
  5. ↑ Heimatbuch Michelfeld 1990, p. 122. Life data of the owners according to Stocker 1895.
  6. ↑ Heimatbuch Michelfeld 1990, p. 122.
  7. ↑ Schubart 1974, p. 30.
  8. ↑ Schubart 1974, p. 30.
  9. ↑ Heimatbuch Michelfeld 1990, p. 122.
  10. ↑ http://www.landgut-schloss-michelfeld.de/geschichte.html

Coordinates: 49 ° 13 ′ 40.6 ″  N , 8 ° 46 ′ 52.5 ″  E