Gailenbach Castle

Gailenbach Castle in Edenbergen, Augsburg district (Bavaria), dates from the end of the 16th century and is a protected monument.

Zacharias Geizkofler, an Augsburg patrician, incorporated into the Imperial Knighthood in 1593 with the predicate "von und zu Gailenbach" and Imperial Treasurer of the Holy Roman Empire from 1597 until his death in 1617, acquired the fief in the hamlet of Gailenbach, first mentioned in a document in 1283, from David Haug in 1592 for 16,000 guilders. In the same year, construction began on a small castle with an armory, economy buildings, a brewery, and gardens, which cost about 6,000 guilders. His son Ferdinand Geizkofler (1592–1653) sold the castle in 1622 for 11,000 Speciesthaler to the merchant Matthias Koch (1581–1633). In the same century, the castle building was also extended to include the manor house; an exact year for the construction is not known.

The castle and manor house remained in the possession of the Koch family for several generations until Markus Christoph Koch von Gailenbach (1699–1768) died without male offspring, and the castle passed to his sister Susanna Helena, widowed von Paris, and her son Johann Christoph Sigmund (1745–1804). The latter had the castle thoroughly rebuilt in 1816/17:

During this, the gabled roof with its stepped gables on the castle was replaced by a mansard roof with dormers, and the ornamental gardens were transformed into a landscape park.

In the following decades, the castle remained in the possession of the von Paris family; Johann Benedikt von Paris (1781–1838) had a commemorative coin minted in 1822 on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the castle estate's ownership by the Koch-Paris family. After his death without male offspring, the castle passed to the Protestant Institute St. Anna from Augsburg in 1838 and, through an intermediary buyer, came into the possession of August von Stetten from the patrician Stetten family. The Stettens had the castle building restored in 1955/56 and – in keeping with the original structure – covered with a gabled roof with stepped gables. In 1927, the Augsburg convent of the Franciscan Sisters of Maria Stern took over the manor house, which, however, was abandoned in the early 1980s. The castle and the manor house are now in private ownership.