Mittelhof Manor

The Mittelhof Gilsa is a former moated castle in Gilsa, a district of the municipality of Neuental in the Schwalm-Eder district of northern Hesse.

The complex is located immediately north of the patron church on the northern edge of the village and was the ancestral seat of the noble family von und zu Gilsa, which divided into two branches, "Gilsa-Oberhof" and "Gilsa-Unterhof", in the 16th century and then built the two neighboring estates Oberhof and Unterhof.

The Mittelhof is the oldest building in the village. The castle was built around the middle of the 15th century as a closed, almost square lowland castle, with four round corner towers and a drawbridge over the surrounding moat.

The castle was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War (1635). Afterwards, the buildings were rebuilt on the old foundations as a manor house. The moat was drained in 1730; the drawbridge was replaced by a solid causeway, and a gate passage was created through the southern wing. Two wings subsequently built in half-timbered style were later demolished again. Today, only the massive south wing with the gate entrance, the foundations of the southwestern corner tower, and the adjoining eastern wing with its half-timbered upper floor remain.