Moggenbrunn Castle

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Former moated castle in Moggenbrunn

Castle Moggenbrunn , formerly a water tower , located in the village Moggenbrunn , a district of Meeder in Coburg the governmental district Upper Franconia in Bavaria . The castle dates from the early 14th century, was adapted to the zeitgeist in the 16th century and has hardly changed since then, despite frequent changes of ownership.

Geographical location

Eight kilometers northwest of Coburg, a wide, fertile plain that was originally swampy extends between the Long Mountains in the north and the Callenberger Forest in the south. Meeder is located in the geographical center of the plain. Four kilometers east of Meeder is its district Moggenbrunn on the country road to Oberlauter. The castle is on the edge of a small park in Schlossgasse . An old chestnut avenue leads from the country road to the park side of the castle.

history

The knight family with their headquarters in Kemmaten (now part of Neustadt bei Coburg ), which has been occupied since 1122, owned an estate with a manor in Moggenbrunn as early as the first half of the 14th century. The expansion to a moated castle was completed by Hans Eitel Kemmater, who was the sole owner of the manor from 1575 and who was becoming increasingly indebted due to his lifestyle. On April 26, 1600, the Kemmater family died out with the execution of Hans Eitel on the Coburg market square. In a rage he had not only killed a farmhand and the schoolmaster of Weißenbrunn in front of the forest , but also ultimately his own son. Now the property fell back to the sovereign Duke Johann Casimir von Sachsen-Coburg , who handed it over to the knight Veit von Lichtenstein a year later . Ritter Veit only changed some of the interior of the castle. The sons of Veits von Lichtenstein sold the estate in 1620 to the High Princely Councilor and Centhmeister Johann Bathermann.

The Thirty Years' War spared the castle and the few houses of Moggenbrunn. In 1677 ownership changed to the imperial court counselor Freiherr Friedrich von Born and in 1694 to his son Georg Friedrich. In the same year he sold the property to Christoph von Wildenstein, who already six years later sold it to Heymond Johann von Schilling. His two daughters inherited the estate in 1716, whereby the older of the two, Magda Barbara, married the privy councilor Johann Karl von Würtzburg in 1722 and was then run as the sole owner. After her death in 1780, her brother-in-law, the Weimar Chamberlain and Captain von Kanne, who resided at Hassenberg Castle, received the Moggenbrunn property. The following year he also died. Now his daughters owned the castle. In 1793 one of them married the Chamberlain von Seefried, who was henceforth registered as lord of the castle. In 1855, his heirs sold the estate and castle to the Sonneberg factory director Dressel. After his death in 1894 a community of heirs took over the property and auctioned it in 1904. The new owner was the Seidmannsdorf businessman Johann Vetter. High mortgage loads on the estate led to its demolition in 1909. The farmer Emil Eckardt from Fechheim bought the remnants with the castle . His grandson Helmut Eckardt began in 1978 to stop the castle from falling into disrepair. With great manual effort, he had the castle restored to the last detail, both inside and outside, by 2000.

The chronicle of the castle, which gave a complete record of ownership and construction activities up to the 18th century, burned in 1860.

Building description

Today's three-storey, eight-to-three-axis palace with its rectangular floor plan dates back to the 16th century. Two upper floors in half-timbered construction rise above the stone ground floor, plastered on the east side and faced with slate on the other sides . In front of the west side is a five-storey, square stair tower, the top floor of which also consists of a half-timbered structure clad in slate with a dome and an octagonal lantern as the dome end. While the ceilings above the landings are designed as cross vaults , there are barrel vaults above the steps . Some niches embedded in the wall of the stair tower with double-stepped indentations were previously used to set up lamps for the staircase lighting.

If the diamond blocks that emphasized the corners of the building, the slate cladding, the dome of the stair tower and a first decorative portal with fittings in bas-relief as well as the wrought iron door knocker with inserted mask heads date from around 1700, the Baroness von Würtzburg looked after them between 1722 and 1725 final design of the elegant portal with flanking round windows and today's window frames and cornices.

The small park with a triangular floor plan adjoining it to the west of the castle has trees with numerous old chestnuts . The farm buildings in front of the castle to the east date from more recent times, with the exception of the attic of the former horse stable. Its square roof turret with a slate-covered helmet and six-sided lantern once carried the manor bell, which was confiscated during World War I and cast into cannon barrels with other bells.

literature

  • Helmut Hofmann: Meeder in old pictures. Geiger, Horb a. N. 1986, ISBN 3-924932-68-9 .
  • Fritz Mahnke: Palaces and castles in the vicinity of the Franconian Crown. Tape. 1st 3rd edition. Druck- und Verlagsanstalt Neue Presse GmbH, Coburg 1974, pp. 60–62.

Web links

Commons : Moggenbrunn Palace  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Fritz Mahnke: Palaces and castles in the vicinity of the Franconian Crown. Tape. 1st 3rd edition. 1974, p. 60.
  2. ^ Eva Herold, Robert Wachter: Moggenbrunn - the golden village. The peasants and the castle. Municipality of Meeder, Meeder 1994, p. 37.
  3. ↑ a b Ulrich Göpfert: The former moated castle Moggenbrunn.
  4. ^ Fritz Mahnke: Palaces and castles in the vicinity of the Franconian Crown. Tape. 1st 3rd edition. 1974, p. 61, para. 2, 4.
  5. ↑ a b c Eva Herold, Robert Wachter: Moggenbrunn - the golden village. The peasants and the castle. Meeder municipality, Meeder 1994, p. 38.
  6. ↑ a b Fritz Mahnke: Palaces and castles in the vicinity of the Franconian Crown. Tape. 1st 3rd edition. 1974, p. 62.
  7. ^ Fritz Mahnke: Palaces and castles in the vicinity of the Franconian Crown. Tape. 1st 3rd edition. 1974, p. 61.

Coordinates: 50 ° 18 ′ 49.4 "  N , 10 ° 56 ′ 53.8"  E