Weitersroda Castle

Tower of the castle

Weitersroda Castle is a knight's castle built in 1478 in the district of the same name in Hildburghausen in southern Thuringia .

Volute and sinuous column on a door jamb in Weitersroda Castle

history

Building history and structural details

The oldest parts of the castle date from the 15th century. The western three-story part of the elongated structure is assigned to this first construction phase. The north-west facade facing the village is characterized by a stair tower and a gate passage and is closed in the south-west by a stepped gable and a bay window . The bay window comprises a ribbed vault on the first floor and a star vault on the second floor . The spiral staircase in the stair tower is built in a historical spindle construction and consists of massive sandstone steps. There are mainly three window shapes to be found in the tower: small, simple unglazed round windows that can be closed by half-cut stone cannonballs, square windows that follow the staircase incline, are diamond-shaped, and at the top of the tower, directly below the roof truss, there are three glazed round windows. Due to the wall thickness of the tower, the window openings each form deep window niches. The reveals of the doors that lead from the tower to the respective floors and also other door and window reveals in the Renaissance building are stepped and grooved and decorated with volutes and in some cases in the lower part with sinuously grooved columns. A second round tower in the west collapsed in the middle of the 20th century and was not rebuilt. This part is mostly made of natural stone masonry , which gives the complex a castle-like character. Inside, on the first floor of the renaissance part, a walkway runs along the window front facing the courtyard, which is divided into niches with a pair of windows each. This is separated from the individual rooms by a half-timbered wall. The framework of this wall is characterized by an unusual carving. This part of the building is accessible from the castle courtyard through a diamond ashlar portal from the 17th century, which leads into a hall with cross vaults and a central diamond ashlar column.

In the northeast, the renaissance part is continued by a newer two-storey part of the building with a solidly bricked ground floor and half-timbered upper floor. A sandstone portal shows the year 1890. To the east, on the courtyard side, there are some foundation walls and a cellar access to the former castle brewery. Other later additions have also been removed. A modern stable building forms the western end of the castle courtyard.

Construction files of the Duchy of Saxony-Hildburghausen in the Meiningen State Archives show that Weitersroda Castle was integrated into a large-scale construction project at the end of the 17th century on the occasion of the elevation of the House of Saxony-Hildburghausen to the ducal status. This project, handed down under the name of “Henriettenthal”, included the today's castle, the “prayer hall”, which is now used as a village church, and a hunting lodge, which was directly opposite, on the other side of today's Schloss-Straße. When it was demolished in 1890, only the eastern baroque pavilion remained, which was restored by wood sculptor Andre "Max" Müller and is now inhabited by him. Further north is what was then the "Lustgarten", the extent of which can still be read from some of the remains of the wall. This area has been used as building land for private homes since 2010.

Upper end of the spiral staircase in the stair tower of Weitersroda Castle

Usage history

The current owner of the castle describes the history of use on his website as follows:

Baroque pavilion of the former Henriettenthal hunting lodge

"The ancestral gallery of the lords of the castle in Weitersroda has a proud row of ingenious freaks and imaginative entrepreneurs - from the builder of the original facility, Eucharius von Hessberg, to the art-loving porcelain manufacturer Prinz Eugen and the brewery entrepreneur Carl Vetter - before VEB Gebäudewirtschaft and the LPG "Liberated Land" used the castle. "

Stepped gable with bay window / Weitersroda Castle

Current

Housing project and cultural revitalization of the castle district

Former tombstone of the Theo Prosel family, Weitersroda Castle

Florian Kirner, aka Prince Chaos II, has been the owner of the castle since 2008 . It will u. a. used for an artistic residential project. In addition to maintaining and repairing the building structure of the castle, the residents have the goal of creating the conditions for cultural diversity in the castle and its immediate surroundings with cultural workers from the region and artists living further away.

Florian Kirner received municipal grants and money from the preservation authorities to secure the castle gable. In 2009 Konstantin Wecker gave a benefit concert for the castle project.

In October 2008, Kirner and Thomas Stöckerl, one of the castle residents, the Thai-American artist Ruth Pongstaphone and the video artist Patrick Palucki acquired a brewery and restaurant building from 1690 opposite the castle. It is used for art exhibitions and has an event hall for around 300 guests. The name "Art Brewery" was promoted for this building through earlier events.

The castle owner, himself a cabaret artist and songwriter , introduced various regular events, for example the “Bird of Paradise Festival” at Weitersroda Castle, a songwriter festival which, in addition to songwriting, also offers arts and crafts, circus and literary offerings. The festival begins on the last Thursday in May.

Another festival, the “Festival of Cultures”, which took place for the first time at the end of August 2012, is also to become an annual event at the castle. The Festival of Cultures, which was first held in 2012 with a stage program, a wide range of activities for children, a cooking workshop and an international bazaar, was made possible by a generous donation from the state program for democracy, diversity and tolerance. It was particularly popular with families with children and helped to effectively reduce fear of contact in the village. The initiator of this festival is Mohamed Zine Liyame, a castle resident who runs a shop for oriental handicrafts in Eisfeld.

The castle can be visited on the day of the open monument .

Culture bar “Simplicissimus” and memorial stone

Medallion depicting the old castle and the hunting lodge Henriettenthal zu Weitersroda on a bus shelter built by André "Max" Müller

Detail in the Simplicissimus in Weitersroda Castle

Weitersroda Castle is home to the “Simplicissimus” cultural pub. The culture bar consists of the taproom and an event hall. It is used for readings, lectures, film evenings and small musical performances and is also an important meeting point for larger events.

The rooms of the pub are characterized by simple, light cross vaults , which are supplemented by lancet vaults , and which rise above a continuous dark wooden wall paneling. The two northern arched windows of the taproom are marked by the von Hessberg coat of arms and the Weitersroda local coat of arms. As wall decorations, historical artist photos stand out, and in the middle there are historical pictures of the castle and its previous owners as well as information about the castle's history. For a special ambience u. a. Moroccan lamps and pillows.

There is a historical tombstone on the castle grounds. The tombstone was previously in Munich's north cemetery , where Theo Prosel , his mother Therese, his sister Anna and his grandson Jean-Marie were buried. However, son-in-law Walther Diehl is buried in another Munich cemetery. His name and the "Simpl dog" were only added before the stone was transported to Weitersroda. All persons listed on the tombstone are ancestors or relatives of Prince Chaos II.

This memorial stone is closely related to the name of the castle's culture bar, which refers to the artist bar “Simplicissimus”, the Simpl (Munich) . The “Simpl dog” on the memorial stone was the logo of the Munich Simpl . The representation goes back to the Simplicissimus - founder and draftsman Thomas Theodor Heine . The typewriter mounted in front of the memorial stone is intended to refer to the family's literary merits.