Ebeleben Castle (Ruin)

Ebeleben Castle is a castle complex in Ebeleben, northern Thuringia. The castle belonged to the Schwarzburg family, who used it as the residence of their secondary line Schwarzburg-Ebeleben between 1651 and 1681. During a bombing raid on the city in 1945, the main building of the castle was also destroyed down to its foundations, so today primarily the castle park and the palm house are of cultural significance.

History
A Schwarzburg castle complex had existed on the hill in the northwest of the city since the Middle Ages. Count Ludwig Günther I had the castle converted into a baroque palace starting in 1651. The building received an S-shaped floor plan with two courtyards open to opposite sides and several outbuildings. The interior design with numerous stucco works was then carried out in the 18th century. Of this castle construction, only some foundation walls and the gate system have been preserved; the rest was destroyed in 1945.

Castle Park
The castle park was laid out starting in 1774 by Christian Günther III. It is located west of the former castle and was designed in the French style, skillfully utilizing the topographical conditions. However, its north-south axis is not aligned with the castle, but with the baroque palm house, an orangery building at the northern end of the park, which is still preserved today. In the lower part of the park are numerous fountain figures depicting scenes from a deer hunt, designed around 1725 by Christoph Johann Biedermann. Further south are neoclassical stone figures accompanying the stairs, attributed to Johann Christoph Klemm.

After the castle park became overgrown during GDR times, restoration slowly began in recent years. In the northern part around the palm house, it has already been completed.