Wendhausen Castle
Wendhausen Castle is a moated castle in the Wendhausen teachers' district in eastern Lower Saxony not far from Braunschweig . The castle was built in 1688 by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, Philipp Ludwig Probst, on the foundation walls of a water castle from the 14th century. An important baroque garden was attached to the three-wing complex during the 18th century .
Predecessor system
The forerunner of the palace complex was a castle first mentioned in 1328 . In terms of location, it should have been a moated castle . It belonged to a chain of low castles along the Schunter , such as Süpplingenburg , Camping bei Flechtorf , Hondelage , which use the swampy lowlands of the river as protection. The castle and village of Wendhausen were located 10 km northeast of the city center of Braunschweig on a 400 m wide and 2 km long Werder in the valley of the Schunter. This was an offside situation, because the Heerstraße Braunschweig- Fallersleben (today's B 248 ) ran 1 km further south. Initially, Wendhausen Castle served as a pledge and loan object to fill the ducal war chest . Over the centuries it has been captured, looted and partly destroyed by fire several times. Such incidents occurred in 1433 during a storm by Brunswick citizens and in 1550 by ducal troops. In 1552 they burned down followers of the mercenary leader Vollrad von Mansfeld . Another destruction occurred in the 17th century when Duke Heinrich Julius resided at the gates of the city of Braunschweig. After disputes between him and the city of Braunschweig, his opponents burned the castle down in 1602. Today's moated castle was built on its foundation walls from 1683–88.
Building description
Structure
The Wendhausen moated castle is an irregular three-wing complex that is open to the west. It has two massive stone storeys supported by mighty cellar vaults. The outer walls have a thickness of 1.4 m in the lower area. The building has 28 rooms with a building area of approx. 800 m². The interior, u. a. with stucco ceilings, paneling , chimneys, renaissance rooms , is now of high quality again. The rooms on the upper floor of the south wing are known as the Duke's Room and the Duke's Hall because the Braunschweig dukes stayed here during their visits.
Environment and access
A wide moat runs around the castle, which is fed by the nearby Schunter . The castle has water rights and requires a certain water level as it is based on wooden stakes. A stone bridge over the current castle moat and the former castle moat enables access to the castle . She crosses it in the direction of the north wing. In addition, there is now a footbridge from the palace courtyard to the former palace park. The stone bridge leads to a large gate in the palace facade, which is adorned with a magnificent arched portal. The several meter high archway in the north wing leads to the approximately 500 m² courtyard, where the entrance to the castle is located. It leads to the main building, in whose round staircase there is a massive oak staircase from 1910. The staircase was originally a high round tower , the upper part of which was demolished in 1865.
Castle moat with green duck fleet
Stone bridge over the castle moat with entrance portal
Entrance portal in the north wing
Castle courtyard with a view from the north to the south wing
history
17th century
The previous castle had been destroyed since 1602. The Wendhausen estate at this point was first mentioned in 1677. In 1682, Philipp Ludwig Probst (1633–1718) , who was in the service of the Brunswick dukes Rudolf August and Anton Ulrich , received the estate as a fief as payment for his services. In 1683 Emperor Leopold raised the feudal taker to the imperial nobility, who from then on was allowed to call himself "von Wendhausen". As Chancellor, he was one of the most influential statesmen in the Duchy of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel . He was also the richest private man who owned other manors in addition to Wendhausen. From 1683 Philipp Ludwig Probst had the moated castle built on the foundation walls of the previous castle, which was completed after five years of construction. Later he celebrated lavish parties in it. In the sumptuous ducal hall he received the Brunswick dukes Rudolf August and Anton Ulrich. Probst von Wendhausen spent his twilight years at the castle.
18th century
After his death in 1718, his granddaughter Ilsa Louise Stisser, widowed von Imhoff, inherited the castle. In 1719 she married Konrad Detlev von Dehn , a favorite and upstart of the Hereditary Prince August Wilhelm . Later the ennobled Dehn was the most powerful man at the ducal court in his functions as a secret and state councilor. After a short marriage, his wife died in childbed and he inherited the castle. Dehn had major modifications made, as he was concerned about representation. This included, above all, the creation of the baroque pleasure garden (see below, palace park) and the construction of two two-story cavalier houses in half-timbered construction , which were soon demolished. He led a courtly life on the estate, although he was rarely present as he was part of the duke's court society. Dehn's dissolute and costly life as well as a change of government brought his career to an abrupt end in 1730. He had to leave the country and went to the Danish court. In 1751 the castle came into the possession of Duke Karl I. After that, the building served as a residential building for the respective tenants of the property. Since the Duchy of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel was heavily in debt, the castle and estate gradually fell into disrepair.
19th century
From 1751 to 1807 the palace was the court of the princely court. From 1807, under French rule by Napoleon , the court of the canton of Wendhausen met in the castle . This form of organization was abolished after the French occupation in 1814 and the castle came into the possession of the ducal domain chamber. From 1836 the Braunschweig publishers family Vieweg leased the estate and castle. In 1873 she acquired both. Karl Vieweg was a successful farmer and horse breeder on the estate. Eduard Vieweg had the five-wing Wendhausen windmill built on an elevation in the village , which is now the town's landmark. The Vieweg family built a book-making paper mill for their Vieweg publishing house in Wendhausen an der Schunter . From 1910 on there were major changes in the interior of the castle, in which the rooms were prepared as exhibition rooms. The owner of the publishing house, Helene Tepelmann, née Vieweg, exhibited the family art collection in the castle until the Second World War .
20th century
After the death of the last heiress of the Vieweg family, Helene Tepelmann, in 1941, the castle was sold to the city of Braunschweig. Towards the end of the war, an auxiliary hospital was set up in it from 1944–45 . After the war it served as a convalescence center for patients with infectious diseases and later as a kindergarten. After the war, displaced persons from eastern Germany also lived in the castle for years . After various other uses, it was used by the Braunschweig branch of the Subud Germany organization , an interreligious brotherhood. An agricultural business also used the castle, but from 1985 it was empty.
1990 Gut und Schloss were sold to the investors Carsten Oestmann and Freiherr Dietrich von Dorbenck. They divided the large complex into three main areas, consisting of the castle with the gardens in the interior of the castle moat, the courtyard with barn and servants' house and the adjacent lands. Numerous conversions and new buildings were erected on the courtyard, which were later marketed, which resulted in a retirement and nursing home in the area of the former estate in addition to residential developments.
The palace was acquired in 1991 by the Brunswick architect Carsten Henze and renovated between 1992 and 1995. In 1995 the Lower Saxony Sparkassenstiftung awarded the State Prize for Monument Preservation for this. Nevertheless, the castle looks unrenovated from the outside. This is due to the fact that the client deliberately left quarry stone masonry and plastered surfaces on the outer facade in order to give the old castle a lively, morbid character. Since 2003 the castle building has been used by various creative companies (architecture, advertising, software development) and as living space. Some representative rooms, such as the former ducal room, ducal hall and cellar vault, as well as the outdoor facilities, can be rented for events.
Castle Park
After the completion of the palace in 1688, the builder Philipp Ludwig Probst von Wendhausen had a small pleasure garden laid out west of the estate, which is no longer preserved today.
When Detlef von Dehn took over his inheritance as the castle owner in 1719, he had a larger baroque garden in the French style laid out west of the castle . The rectangular complex, oriented towards the castle, was surrounded by a 1800 m long graft . The horticultural master Le Notre was hired to design the garden. Individual elements of the park are reminiscent of the garden of Sanssouci Palace , which Le Notre also designed. In Wendhausen he had avenues, hedges, bosket areas , ponds and a central fountain created and equipped the garden with numerous statues. According to a description from 1727, the complex resembled the baroque gardens of Schloss Salzdahlum and Herrenhausen .
At the beginning of the 19th century the baroque garden was removed as it no longer had a representative role. It became an agricultural area with meadows, orchards and garden land. At the end of the 19th century, the land was partially redesigned. The eastern part of the garden near the palace became a landscape park , while the western area remained usable. Today the areas make an overgrown impression. They consist of an open area and a forest with partly exotic trees, but also with old native trees such as oak, beech, poplar, linden, robinia, chestnut.
Since 2017 there have been five sculptures by the sculptor Denis Stuart Rose in the park of the palace . In 2018, the sixth festival of the series of events "Jazz in the Park" took place in the park of the palace, an event organized by the Braunschweigische Landschaft and the Braunschweigischer Kulturbesitz Foundation in a different park in the Braunschweig area .
literature
- Hans Adolf Schultz : Castles and Palaces of the Braunschweiger Land , Braunschweig 1980, Wendhausen Castle , pp. 22-23, ISBN 3-87884-012-8 .
- Rainer Schomann (Ed.), Urs Boeck : Park des Schloss Wendhausen in: Historical Gardens in Lower Saxony, catalog for the state exhibition, opening on June 9, 2000 in the foyer of the Lower Saxony state parliament in Hanover . Hannover, 2000, pp. 130-131.
- Gesine Schwarz: The knight seats of the old country of Braunschweig. Göttingen 2008, pp. 5-8.
Web links
- Entry on Wendhausen, Wasserburg in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute
- Description and photos at burgerbe-Blog.de
- Photos from Wendhausen Castle
- The castle at burgen-und-schlösser.net
- Reconstruction drawing by Wolfgang Braun
Individual evidence
- ↑ Martin Jasper: Idylle with horror factor in Braunschweiger Zeitung from July 6, 2017
- ↑ Jazz im Park 2018 , accessed on August 26, 2018
Coordinates: 52 ° 19 ′ 10 ″ N , 10 ° 37 ′ 58 ″ E