Location: Mespelbrunn, Bavaria Map
Constructed: 1427
Open: Apr- Oct
Mespelbrunn Castle is located in Mespelbrunn in the Aschaffensburg district of the state of Bavaria in Germany. Mespelbrunn Castle was originally found in 1427 by Hamann Echter. He replaced an original mansion with a bigger mansion and a moat that surround it. The oldest surviving part of the castle is the round watch tower that was used by the bandits that used to live in the Spessart Forest. They used to rob travellers that passed through these forests, but in the time of trouble they would hide in their stronghold to protect against law enforcing forces.
Mespelbrunn Castle owes its existence to
a gift from the Archbishop of Mainz, Johann II of Nassau. On May 1,
1412, Hamann Echter, his electoral forest master in the Spessart,
assigned a “desert and farmstead” including accessories “called
Espelborn” and a farm in Hessenthal as an allod property. The noble
family, which since then has been called Echter von Mespelbrunn, has
been known as the ministerial family since the 13th century, among
other things in the service of the Archbishops of Mainz.
It
is unclear whether an older castle already stood in the place of
this desert. In 1435 it is mentioned that the son Hamann II. Echter
entrusted the castle (which had been built in the meantime) to the
Archbishopric of Mainz and had to make it available as an open house
if required. The reason for building a small castle in the narrow
valley floor at a pond on the Krebsbach, a strategically little
place, could have been that the archbishopric was consolidating its
position in the Spessart against its territorial rivals, the Counts
of Rieneck wanted. In addition, about three kilometers to the north
was the intersection of two long-distance routes, the Poststrasse
and the Eselsweg. The exact start of construction of a permanent
house with a moat and a keep with a high entrance is not known, but
could be between 1419 and 1427. The Hessenthal pilgrimage church was
built in 1439 as the burial place of the real people.
Peter III Echter von Mespelbrunn (1520–1576) and his
wife Gertrud von Adelsheim had the small fortification rebuilt and
expanded in the Renaissance style from 1551. The north wing with the
small round chapel tower, which has late Gothic tracery windows, was
built by 1569, the east wing (possibly initially single-storey) and
the eastern part of the south wing. The two-storey north wing with
stepped gables on both sides and an arbor on the courtyard side is
decorated with sculptural decoration, including the richly decorated
staircase portal in the courtyard, which has reliefs of the married
couple, their coats of arms and ancestral coats of arms, as well as
capitals with angel heads, masks and rosettes and the dates 1564 and
1569. The motto is above the portraits:
Married love in God
and steady Trew
Brings happiness and blessings without all Rew.
We trusted God with earnestness and diligence,
Built this house
for our own good.
Peter III was Kurmainzischer bailiff in
Stadtprozelten and also owned a town house in Aschaffenburg, the
Echterhaus, which he had rebuilt around 1570. He and his wife can be
seen on the real epitaph in the Hessenthal church with their ten
children. He was followed as bailiff by his son Adolf (1543–1600),
who completed the construction work in Mespelbrunn by the mid-1590s,
including the western part of the south wing in 1581 and the west
wing from 1584 along with the addition of the late medieval keep.
Adolf's brother Julius Echter, who was born in Mespelbrunn in 1545,
was elected Prince-Bishop of Würzburg in 1573 and held office there
until his death in 1617. He founded the Juliusspital in 1576 and the
University of Würzburg in 1583; many buildings in the Würzburg
monastery go back to him, including the expansion of the Marienberg
fortress.
In 1623 the children of Peters were raised to the
status of imperial barons; the son Valentin II. Echter (1550-1624)
acquired the castles Gaibach, Schwarzenau and Öttershausen. His line
of descendants died out in the male line in 1636 and a last line in
1665. Through the marriage of Freiin Maria Ottilia Echterin von und
zu Mespelbrunn (1629–1701) in 1658 with Philipp Ludwig von
Ingelheim, the property fell to the von Ingelheim family from the
Middle Rhine region, who took the name of Ingelheim called Echter
von und zu Mespelbrunn and was elevated to the status of baron in
1680, and in 1737 to the state of count. The Counts of Ingelheim
called Echter von und zu Mespelbrunn own the castle to this day.
The son Franz Adolf Dietrich (1659–1742) had the palace restored
from 1713 to 1717 after the west wing built in 1584 had partially
collapsed. This was rebuilt, roofs, doors, windows and window
frames, floorboards and chimney doors were renewed and a lot of new
furniture was purchased. Franz Adolf had been the Electorate of
Mainz in the Rheingau since 1682 and mostly stayed in Geisenheim,
where he owned the Ingelheimer Hof. In 1683 he married Ursula
Kämmerin von Worms called von Dalberg, who in 1720 inherited the
Gamburg Castle with the associated manor, which remained in the
family until 1936 and was mostly used as the main residence in
addition to the city palaces in Mainz, Aschaffenburg, Geisenheim and
Mannheim.
Possibly around 1840 the west wing facing the castle pond to the right of the keep was demolished, which gave the complex a closed and defensive appearance. In the spirit of romanticism, the narrow inner courtyard was opened to the west towards the pond with a flying buttress and a tracery gallery running above it, which connects the keep with the baroque south wing, the front side of which was accentuated by a large bay window and a stepped gable. Only then did the castle on the west side gain its “fairytale” appearance. In 1851 the western part of the north wing collapsed and was then rebuilt. In 1904 Count Philipp Rudolf von Ingelheim had the palace restored and modernized, the kitchen in front of the east wing was increased and a tail gable was added. He had the rooms partly redecorated in line with historicism, with the advice of the architect Friedrich von Thiersch.
Thanks to its hidden location, the Mespelbrunn moated castle survived all the chaos of war unscathed and has retained its picturesque appearance, also because it was seldom inhabited as the headquarters and therefore little changed, but was always repaired. After the death of Albrecht Graf von Ingelheim in 2006, the castle became the property of his eldest daughter, Marie Antoinette Countess von Ingelheim called Echterin von und zu Mespelbrunn (* 1973), a married Baroness Geyr von Schweppenburg. The family lives in the south wing of the house, while the north wing has been partially opened to the public since the early 1920s. The castle can be visited from Good Friday to All Saints Day. In 2020 the roof of the keep, the chapel tower and the rear tower of the ensemble were renovated. During this time the previously private area of the park was also opened.