Cumberland Castle

Cumberland Castle is situated on a hill northeast of Gmunden near Lake Traunsee in Austria.

On October 2, 1866, the Kingdom of Hanover was seized by Prussia as a result of the German War, which was lost by Austria and its ally Hanover. The King of Hanover, George V, had become a landless refugee due to these events, dependent on the hospitality of his relatives and friendly princes. He therefore initially went to Vienna to his war ally Emperor Franz Joseph I.

In the spring of 1868, the royal family, like the imperial court in Vienna, came to the Salzkammergut for a cure. They stayed in Villa Redtenbacher near Gmunden. The property, still ducal today and known as Königinvilla, was in the immediate vicinity of the castle.

On June 15, 1882, construction began on the exile residence of Ernst August, Crown Prince of Hanover and 3rd Duke of Cumberland, in the Neo-Gothic Tudor style. The Hanoverian Ferdinand Schorbach was commissioned as architect. On September 15, 1886, the newly built castle was occupied. The chapel and the Prinzenstoeckl (today the library building) were erected a few years later. From 1886 until his death in 1923, the castle was the seat of the exiled Crown Prince. Ernst August, his mother, and several other members of the family are buried in a mausoleum next to the castle. The associated forest and hunting grounds near Grünau im Almtal, the Cumberland Wildlife Park, remain to this day in the possession of a family foundation of the Welfs.

In 1930, the castle was converted into a Welf House and Family Museum. In 1938, the National Socialists re-designated the castle as a Gau training castle. From 1940 to 1945, it served as a military hospital.

After the Second World War, the Republic of Austria took over Cumberland Castle. From 1947 to 1972, the castle served as a TB hospital. After a thorough disinfection of the building, the castle was re-designated as a provincial nursing home, and on January 8, 1973, nursing operations officially began. On January 1, 1979, the entire property was acquired by the Province of Upper Austria and is now called "Landespflege- und Betreuungszentrum Schloss Cumberland" (Provincial Nursing and Care Center Cumberland Castle).