Sachsenfeld Manor

The origin of Sachsenfeld was the later Ober-Sachsenfeld, which mainly consisted of a knight's estate and belonged to the monastery of Grünhain until the introduction of the Reformation. The official inheritance book of the Grünhain office mentions in 1546 in Sachsenfeld the hammer mill, the old mill, Polmer's estate, Fridel's estate and Goldhans' estate, referring to the later Unter-Sachsenfeld. In 1559, the mayor of Annaberg, Hans Schwarz, acquired the knight's estate from the Saxon Elector August. After that, the owners changed frequently. In 1569, the estate went to Lucas Uthmann, Barbara Uthmann's brother-in-law. In 1580, it was owned by Junker Hans Hünerkopf, who is said to have commissioned the establishment of the Sachsenfeld lordship's burial vault. In 1593, Nikolaus Klinger, hammer lord and owner of the Förstelhammer near Raschau, the Kugelhammer near Schwarzenberg, a hammer in Rittersgrün and the hammer mill in Erla, also brought the Sachsenfeld knight's estate into the family's possession.

Nicol Klinger distinguished himself both in the expansion of the Beierfeld church and in the development of the estate into a castle. Already in 1602, he handed over the estate to his son-in-law, Hans Rüdiger, the son of Burgrave Lucas Rüdiger zu Thorn in Prussia. In 1613, the latter acquired the iron hammer mill Untersachsenfeld. Rüdiger's significant economic position became particularly evident in 1609 and 1616, when he hosted the Saxon Duke and Elector Johann Georg at his estate. After Rüdiger's death in 1630, his son of the same name took over the properties, which were damaged and plundered during the Thirty Years' War. In 1644, the estate, including the Untersachsenfeld hammer mill and the two Sachsenfeld mills, came into the possession of his brother-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel and District Administrator of the Grünhain and Schwarzenberg/Erzgeb. districts, Veit Dietrich Wagner, who was later also responsible for the construction of Johanngeorgenstadt. In 1650, he acquired the adjoining village of Beierfeld to the north from the Elector, thereby detaching it from the Grünhain monastery office.

After his death in 1668, further owners were: His son-in-law, the knight's fief and higher court lawyer in Bayreuth and district bailiff in Helmbrecht Christof Melchior Feuerlein, and in 1722 Imperial Count Heinrich Wilhelm Graf zu Solms-Wildenfels und Tecklenburg (1675–1741), in whose family the estate remained for over 100 years. His son Friedrich Ludwig Graf zu Solms-Wildenfels und Tecklenburg was the regional governor of the Ore Mountains district. He owned a library of more than 10,000 volumes in a rented farmhouse. After the insolvency of the estate in 1811, it was auctioned off by Carl Georg Freiherr von Müller, whose son took it over nine years later for 29,000 thalers. After a fire in 1833, in which only the stair tower remained, the castle was rebuilt. In the course of industrialization and the associated decline of agriculture, the Sachsenfeld knight's estate lost importance during the 19th century. With the newly introduced Saxon Rural Community Ordinance in 1838, Beierfeld and Sachsenfeld gained their political independence. In 1857, Hammer-Untersachsenfeld was incorporated into Neuwelt. In 1913, (Ober-)Sachsenfeld lost its independence and was incorporated by Schwarzenberg, which had already become the owner of the knight's estate in 1912. In 1945, the owners were expropriated and expelled by the communists.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the castle was saved from decay by renovation and renewal measures. In the early 1990s, it was fundamentally reconstructed again and has since been privately operated as a restaurant.