Mainhardt Hunting Lodge (Jagdschloss Mainhardt)

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Landkreis Schwäbisch Hall

In the heart of the village of Mainhardt, amid the game-rich forests of the Schwäbisch Hall district, the hunting lodge recalls the presence of the House of Hohenlohe, which acquired the locality by purchase in 1416. At the end of the 16th or beginning of the 17th century the counts had a main building and outbuildings erected, first mentioned in 1603 as a bailiff's house with stable and cowshed, then described as a “Schloss” in 1644. The ensemble is arranged around a courtyard: the free-standing residence in the centre, a fortified gateway to the south topped by a mansard roof and linked to the residence by a gallery, an old well in the south-east corner and, on the street side, a chapel built in 1781 for Prince Ludwig Karl Leopold of Hohenlohe-Bartenstein, a Catholic branch in a Protestant land. Having passed into private middle-class hands around 1870 (a tannery, then a spice mill), the estate was bought back in 1977 by the municipality, which restored it and opened it to the public; the former chapel now houses the Roman Museum of Mainhardt, a town on the former Limes.