Falkenegg Castle

The oldest part of the castle, with its square floor plan and its front-facing, also square tower, was built by Count von Mendorff, a brother-in-law of Duke Ernst I, in the first half of the 19th century in the Neo-Gothic style. It served as a representative residence for him and his wife, Princess Sophie.

In 1891, the castle came into the possession of Baron von Ledersteger-Falkenegg, who had it extended to its current size based on building plans signed by master builder Eduard Grams. The building, evoking castle romanticism, now also featured motifs of Italian and English Renaissance and a Neo-Romanesque detail.

The owners of the castle changed at short intervals, and with them, the external and internal appearance of the building. In 1905, G. A. Melchers took over the castle. He had a metal veranda added, designed in the style of the English Decorated Style. The originally Neo-Gothic portal was converted in 1913 into a Neo-Romanesque one, but with pointed arches. The client was the then owner Richard Berger, who was succeeded in 1920 by Rittmeister Oskar Jäger. Jäger, who owned a factory for jersey shirts in Barmen, had the spacious interior layout of the castle converted into three separate apartments. Furthermore, a gardener's apartment, several garages, an engine house, and an electric pumping station were added to the ensemble in the Old German half-timbered style.

Falkenegg Castle includes a small park that slopes up from Neuses to the castle. A striking feature at the park entrance is a seven-meter-high sandstone obelisk adorned with ornaments and quotes. It is a monument to the poet and writer Moritz August von Thümmel, who served as a minister under Hereditary Prince Ernst Friedrich and died in Coburg in 1817.

Behind the obelisk stands a column stump entwined with snakes. Originally, a stone urn stood on it. This is the tomb of Countess Adrienne Elisabeth von Corneillan, a relative of Thümmel, who died in 1822. Beneath the column is a small crypt, now filled in.

In a small indentation in the terrain to the left of the Thümmel Obelisk, one finds the expressive small memorial for Prince Christian Franz († 1797), the four-year-older brother of Friedrich Josias. Lost in sorrow, the Genius of Death leans on a column stump and extinguishes the torch of life. A pensive putto crouches on the column base.

At least since 1941, Falkenegg Castle and the hillside park have been owned by the City of Coburg, which maintained a kindergarten there from 1949. Today, the castle houses a kindergarten of the Evangelical-Lutheran church community.