Kirchheimbolanden Castle

Kirchheimbolanden Castle is located in the town of Kirchheimbolanden in Rhineland-Palatinate. The complex was first mentioned in a document as a castle around 1390.

From 1602 to 1618, a castle (the so-called old castle) was already built outside the actual city walls by the Counts of Nassau-Weilburg, who had their permanent residence in Weilburg an der Lahn.

Under Prince Carl-August of Nassau-Weilburg, a new building was erected from 1738-1740. Karl August was an Imperial Prince and wanted a contemporary building. Guillaume d'Hauberat was hired as architect and master builder, who also built Mannheim Palace and Schwetzingen Palace for the Elector of the Palatinate. A terraced castle garden was to be laid out at the new castle, its irrigation to be derived from the copper mines of the nearby village of Haide. Some of these water channels have been preserved to this day.

After the occupation of nearby Mainz by the French, Prince Friedrich-Wilhelm of Nassau-Weilburg fled from Kirchheimbolanden to Bayreuth in 1793. This ended the castle's function as a princely residence, and thus also the rule of the Princes of Nassau-Weilburg over this region.

In 1807, the castle and castle garden were declared French national property and could thus be sold. The complex was auctioned in Mainz in 1807, as Mainz was now the administrative seat of the Département Donnersberg. The estate owner and textile manufacturer Daniel Andreas from Mülheim an der Ruhr bought the property at auction. He had the central building and the left wing of the castle demolished and moved into his private apartment in the remaining right wing of the castle.

After the end of French rule, the Département Donnersberg fell to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1816. The region was initially called the Rheinkreis, later the Rheinpfalz.

On March 21, 1839, Kirchheimbolanden Castle was sold to the Bavarian master builder Leo von Klenze from Munich. He had extensive structural changes made, but did not take up permanent residence in the castle. He sold the complex in 1841 to the pensioner Heinrich Seligmann from Mainz, who in turn sold it in 1844 to the farmer Friedrich Brunck from nearby Winterborn/Alsenz.

In 1848/49, the Palatinate Freischärler declared the castle their headquarters, but were soon driven out by Prussian troops.

On November 3, 1861, the still standing east wing of the castle burned down. Friedrich Brunck had it rebuilt in a simplified form with two stories and a hip roof.

In 2003, the old U-shape of the castle was restored as the "Seniorenresidenz Schloss Kirchheimbolanden" (Kirchheimbolanden Castle Senior Residence), with only the east wing structurally recalling its former shape and splendor. But in this way, the contours of the old castle as a three-winged complex have been resurrected.

For the design of the castle garden, Dr. Heinrich Ritter von Brunck commissioned the Frankfurt garden designer Heinrich Siesmayer. The latter had been commissioned by the grandson (Duke Adolf of Nassau) of the last prince to reside in Kirchheimbolanden and then flee, to sell his extensive collection of plants and trees from Biebrich Palace near Wiesbaden, as the Prussians annexed his Duchy of Nassau in 1866.