Steinsches Castle

Stein's Castle is a castle in the municipality of Barchfeld in the Wartburg district. It is located on the property Schlossweg 5 on the western edge of the historic village and rises on the grounds of the former moated castle in the Werra valley. The castle is a ruin and a protected monument. It was acquired by the municipality and is to be renovated.

Stein's Castle was the seat of the Stein-Liebenstein zu Barchfeld family, who resided in Barchfeld and held the town as a fief from the Counts of Henneberg and as sole judicial lords until 1387. The castle was built between 1571 and 1581 at the instigation of Georg Ernst von Stein on the moats and on the remains of a moated castle first mentioned in 1387. A residential building of the Stein family had previously stood there, which was a three-story, square stone building and is interpreted by architectural historians as the stump of a defensive tower due to its 2.55 m thick walls. A part of the predecessor building, used as an outbuilding, survived until around 1790.

In the immediate vicinity of Stein's Castle, Schloss Wilhelmsburg was built between 1690 and 1732 on behalf of the new sovereign, a three-winged Baroque castle that became the residence of the Landgraves of Hessen-Philippsthal-Barchfeld from 1721.

To match this upgrade of the town, the then castle owner Daniel Raban von Stein decided to have a large grand staircase with a stone railing installed on the north facade of his castle, which faces the town of Barchfeld. It replaced the previously used stair tower at the same location. In 1768, the castle complex was further enlarged by the addition of side wings. The purpose of this extension was to relocate the representative rooms and halls, which were now permanently shaded by the landgrave's castle to the south. In total, the castle had over 30 heated rooms. The castle park, which extended almost to the banks of the Werra, had the character of a landscape park and used a group of old veteran trees on the banks of the Werra as a backdrop.

The building fabric of Stein's Castle, constructed from soft sandstone, had to undergo a fundamental renovation in 1840. During this process, a forgotten coat of arms was uncovered in the plastered facade, which was attributed to the builder Georg Ernst von Stein and his wife Anna (from the Hundt von Wenckheim family). This coat of arms was moved several times in the following period. A second coat of arms refers to Raban von Stein and his wife Sophie Dorothea von Webern.

Among the castle's attractions is a number of scratched figures discovered in the cellar dungeon, which were probably carved as a pastime by prisoners incarcerated there.