Gomaringen Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Landkreis Tübingen

In the heart of Gomaringen, between Tübingen and Reutlingen, Gomaringen Castle brings together several centuries of architecture around a courtyard. Its core dates from the early 13th century, the Staufer period: a curtain wall of rusticated ashlar once surrounded a keep, of which only the foundations remain since it was dismantled in 1697. The half-timbered south-east building, dated to 1307 by dendrochronology, preserves a corner room decorated in the mid-14th century with vines and parrots. The half-timbered east wing dates from 1590, while the courtyard holds a Renaissance fountain column carved in 1548 by Hans Huber of Reutlingen. Seat of the local lesser nobility and later of the bailiffs of the Imperial City of Reutlingen, the castle passed to Württemberg before being bought by the municipality in 1812. It then served as a Protestant parsonage for almost 180 years; the poet Gustav Schwab was pastor here from 1837 to 1841. Since 1998 it has housed a museum devoted to the castle and the writer, and hosts civil weddings, concerts and exhibitions.