Pfaffendorf Castle

The Pfaffendorf Castle is a simple, three-wing baroque building in the center of Maroldsweisacher local part Pfaff village in the district of Haßberge in Unterfranken . The former aristocratic residence has been home to a boarding school for the Salesians of Don Bosco since 1954 .

history

General view from the south, on the right the modern chapel

Logo of the Salesians Don Bosco

The economic decline of the von Stein zu Altenstein family forced the family to give up their nearby ancestral castle Altenstein at the beginning of the 18th century . As a new residence, the von Stein had the small castle in Pfaffendorf built from 1703 onwards. The new building replaced an older residence from the first half of the 16th century.

The Franconian master builder family Dientzenhofer was responsible for the planning of the Pfaffendorf palace , the construction work was carried out by lieutenant engineer Michael Küchel , a student of Balthasar Neumann . Client Christian Adam Ludwig von Stein had the building completed in 1763. The three-wing, two-storey complex looks simple on the outside and impresses with its clear architectural structure. Two rows of graceful bay windows crown the steeply sloping hipped roof. An English park with green meadows, bushes, tall fir trees and old linden trees surrounds the castle. It remained in family ownership until 1875 and when the German line of Stein died out, it came to Count Edmund von Linden and later to a branch of the Barons von Grunelius, descendants of a wealthy Frankfurt banking family ennobled in 1883. A Georg Karl Jost Freiherr von Grunelius, son of Georg Adolf von Grunelius (1870–1934) was born there on July 11, 1908. The English ladies bought the property during the Great Depression . After the Second World War, the Salesians of Don Bosco set up a school and boarding school there (youth welfare center Pfaffendorf), which is specifically dedicated to the support of learning disabled and “educationally difficult” children and young people.

Building description

The main courtyard of the two-storey palace opens to the north. The main entrance, however, is on the south side and is accessible via a dais with a baluster . The castle, which is only structured by simple corner pilasters , a belt cornice and the window openings, has a high hipped roof . The main wing is nine window axes wide, the side wings have only eight axes.

Inside, the rooms are located on corridors facing the courtyard. In the stairwell in the east wing, the elegant railing made of shell-work shapes has been preserved. Some of the rooms on the upper floor still have their elegant stucco decoration , some rococo doors and cast iron stoves have also been preserved. However, the interior of the castle was heavily changed due to the conversion. After the demolition of all the ancillary buildings in the palace at the beginning of the 1970s, the Salesians of Don Bosco erected modern residential and utility buildings in the park, in which over 100 boys received educational help.

literature

• The art monuments of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Volume 3: Administrative region of Lower Franconia & Aschaffenburg. = The art monuments of Lower Franconia & Aschaffenburg. Issue 15: Hans Karlinger : District Office Ebern. With a historical introduction by Hans Ring. Oldenbourg, Munich 1916 (Unchanged reprint. Ibid 1983, ISBN 3-486-50469-X ).
• Anton Rahrbach, Jörg Schöffl, Otto Schramm: Palaces and castles in Lower Franconia - A complete representation of all palaces, manors, castles and ruins in the Lower Franconian independent cities and districts . Hofmann Verlag, Nuremberg 2002, ISBN 3-87191-309-X , p. 164.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Fritz Klemm: Around the Zeilberg: Maroldsweisach market with all districts . Maroldsweisach 1988, p. 113.

Coordinates: 50 ° 10 ′ 13.4 ″  N , 10 ° 42 ′ 59 ″  E