Neuenstadt Palace

En un regard

Le château en bref

In the heart of Neuenstadt am Kocher, in the district of Heilbronn, the palace occupies a site that may already have been fortified in Roman times, where the lords of Weinsberg owned a castle recorded in 1392. Duke Christopher of Württemberg had this fortress demolished in 1560–1564 and began a new palace in 1565, originally designed with four wings. From 1617 to 1781 it was the residence of the ducal branch of Württemberg-Neuenstadt, which laid out a 2.5-hectare garden there in 1621. The complex combines the Dürnitzbau, the oldest part, attributed to the architect Heinrich Schickhardt, a 16th-century round corner tower and the east wing, known as the Lindenbau or Prinzessenbau, from the second half of the 17th century. Uninhabited after 1781, the palace became a granary, a barracks from 1806 to 1815 and then the seat of the tax administration. Damaged by bombing in April 1945, since 1958 it has hosted an annual open-air theatre festival in its former moats.