Nidda Castle

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Inner courtyard of the palace in Nidda

The Nidda Castle is newly built budding 17th century castle in Nidda , Wetteraukreis , Hessen . It was partly designed in the late Gothic style , partly in the Renaissance style. The building dates from soon after 1604, when Nidda came into the possession of the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt ; The castle can already be seen on Valentin Wagner's city ​​view from 1633.

prehistory

Valentin Wagner : View of the city and Nidda Castle from the southeast, November 1633

The castle stands on the site and on the foundations of an originally by Count Volkold II. Of Nidda in the humid lowlands in the valley of Nida built Wasserburg . This served to secure the important trade route that ran from the Frankfurt area along the Nidda over the Vogelsberg .

It is not entirely clear whether Volkold II or his father was the builder of the circular moated castle in Nidda; possibly the son completed the construction started by the father. It is at least known that the judicial district of Bingenheim was also called " Grafschaft Nidda " at this time . Volkold II moved from Bingenheim Castle in Fulda to his own castle in Nidda and called himself "Count of Nidda" from 1104 at the latest.

After the death of Volkhold's grandson Berthold II († before 1205), his small county and with it the castle came by inheritance to his nephew Ludwig I von Ziegenhain . When the Counts of Ziegenhain died out in the male line in 1450, the county and Nidda Castle became the property of the Landgraves of Hesse . The castle served them as the official seat of ministerials . When the landgraviate was divided under the sons of Philip I in 1567, Nidda came with the castle to Hessen-Marburg , then in 1604 to Hessen-Darmstadt .

construction

Landgrave Ludwig V , but possibly only his son and successor Georg II , had the almost circular castle, which was once surrounded by a moat and now quite dilapidated, converted into a palace that served his officials in the Nidda as a residence and official seat, including several members of the Krug von Nidda family . The moats were filled in. The southern, two-storey main building on a raised basement with the stair tower on the long side was built in the late Gothic style, but the decorative forms of the portal are already assigned to the Renaissance. In 1907/08, two extension wings were added to the main building at an angle of 45 degrees to the north-west and north, whereby the now middle one spans a large gateway into the inner courtyard and the outermost one in turn has a pre-built stair tower .

use

In 1688 and 1693 the palace was used as the residence of Landgrave Ernst Ludwig von Hessen-Darmstadt when he had to leave Darmstadt during the War of the Palatinate Succession because parts of his land were occupied by French troops.

In 1821 the landgrave offices were dissolved and the castle became the seat of the district administrator , the district of Nidda and the district of the district court of Nidda and, from 1830, of the district of Nidda . From 1848 to 1852 it was the seat of the administrative district of Nidda and then, after the abolition of the administrative districts in 1852, again the seat of the district office for Nidda. When the Nidda district was dissolved in 1874, the castle became the service building of the Nidda District Court . The district judge's house and the prison building in the courtyard date from this time . The district court was dissolved at the end of 2011. It was not until 2018 that private interested parties were found who bought the castle. Some of them will be converted into apartments and the “Dark Dirndl” studio will move into part of the building.

Every summer, cultural events (theater, pantomime, music events) take place in the castle courtyard, which the local population and foreign guests like to attend.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Structural decisions in the Hessian judiciary  ( 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 this notice. ; Hessian Ministry of Justice, Integration and Europe ; Press release; June 15, 2010; Retrieved May 25, 2011@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.hmdj.hessen.de  

Coordinates: 50 ° 24 ′ 48 ″  N , 9 ° 0 ′ 39.7 ″  E