Nienover Castle

The Nienover Castle is a 1640 to 1656 built, three-wing hunting lodge in Nienover in Solling in Lower Saxony . It was built on the site of a medieval castle that was destroyed in 1626 during the Thirty Years War .

Castle as a predecessor

Building description

The location of the hilltop castle was a mountain spur in the valley of the Reiherbach , which offered the structure an imposing protection to the south. In a northerly direction, the terrain runs out against the surrounding mountain landscape of the Solling without a distinctive transition. Since such locations are more typical of the Early Middle Ages than the High Middle Ages , construction of Nienover Castle is believed to have started in the first millennium. From this time, when the area belonged to the Augau , a remnant of a wall with a window has been preserved, as well as an approximately 33 meter deep castle well and parts of the circular wall . In front of the wall was a double wall-trench system that has since been removed and filled. The exact appearance of the castle complex is no longer known, as it was demolished in 1626 after it was destroyed. It is believed that their buildings were grouped around the castle courtyard and that the castle area had a diameter of almost 50 meters. The castle had a castle chapel and a keep . During excavations it was found that it had a diameter of around 11 meters with a wall thickness of 4.4 meters.

On the site in front of Nienover Castle, the Counts of Dassel founded a settlement fortified with a rampart and moat around 1180, which, due to its size, was a town. During an attack between 1269 and 1274, the settlement burned down and became the urban desert of Nienover .

history

In 1144, Nienover Castle was first mentioned as Nienuverre in the list of allodies of Count Siegfried von Northeim . Later the castle probably came into the possession of Hermann II. Von Winzenburg and after the ostracism of Heinrich the Lion as a confiscated imperial fief to the Counts of Dassel , who moved their headquarters there around 1200. In 1274, the Counts of Dassel proposed a handover to the Welfs if the imperial fief was withdrawn, but King Rudolf I did not correspond. That is why the castle was only sold to Albrecht II in 1303 and thus came to the Guelphs. The castle became the official residence and was mortgaged. From here, the Dukes of Braunschweig have been going on hunting trips to the Solling since the 15th century. Duke Heinrich Julius von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel also used the castle regularly as a hunting residence. It served the Duchess Elisabeth von Calenberg-Göttingen as a residence and from 1540 as a widow's residence . The castle was badly damaged in the Thirty Years' War in 1626 .

Castle complex

The castle with farm buildings on a Merian -stitch to 1654

On the foundations of the castle, today's hunting lodge was built between 1640 and 1656 by Albrecht Anton Meldau with a half-timbered upper floor and a sandstone roof . The building is divided into three construction phases, as the main building is divided into two halves by the construction seam visible as a central corner cuboid, to which a modern auxiliary building was added. Renaissance work pieces from the demolished Freudenthal Castle in Uslar were used in the construction. The castle equipment included valuable wall cladding that was used for heating purposes. A church is documented as an accessory in 1535.

In front of the castle there is a terrace on three levels on the south side from around 1690. It served as a kitchen garden for fruit and vegetables, whereby the heat-storing dry stone walls counteracted the harsh climate of the Solling. The palace garden covers three hectares. Until 1962 the castle was the official seat of a forester . From 1964 it was privately owned. In 1979 the state of Lower Saxony bought it under Prime Minister Ernst Albrecht for 1.8 million DM in order to use it as a guest house for the state government of Lower Saxony . Individual pieces of baroque furniture from the palace came to the Lower Saxony State Chancellery in Hanover. The Lower Saxony state government later had the castle structurally renovated for almost 5 million DM. From 1984 to 2005 it housed a branch of the forestry faculty of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen . In November 2005, the state government of Lower Saxony, led by Hartmut Möllring, sold the castle into private hands. It has been used as a stud since then . The castle is surrounded by a modern wall and is not open to the public.

The archaeological research on the castle so far mainly concerned the castle fountain . The objects found in it reflect the everyday culture of the 18th century.

North wing of the courtyard
East wing of the courtyard
South wing of the courtyard

literature

Erich Weise: History of Nienover Castle in Solling . Lax, Hildesheim 1989. ISBN 3784836577
Thomas Küntzel, Uwe Lüdeker, Hans-Georg Stephan , Julian Wiethold: 30 m underground in: Archeology in Lower Saxony , 2003, pp. 112–115
Markus C. Blaich , Sonja Stadje, Kim Kappes: Burg und Schloss Nienover in: Die Heldenburg bei Salzderhelden, castle and residence in the Principality of Grubenhagen , (= guide to the prehistory and early history of Lower Saxony. 32) Isensee Verlag , Oldenburg, 2019, p. 131-133.