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Moated castle Unsleben

The castle Unsleben in Lower Franconia was an important Franconian knight's seat in Bavaria. It lies on the northeastern edge of the village of Unsleben (Rhön-Grabfeld district) in the floodplains of the Streu River. A millrace branches off from the Streu, feeding the castle moat and flowing around it.

Description

The building is a two-winged structure with a connecting wing and a stair tower providing access to both wings. The east wing consists of two timber-framed stories built on top of a stone foundation. The west wing is topped by a Baroque mansard roof. The year 1527 is inscribed on a gate on the ground floor of the east wing. Next to the main building is a single-story outbuilding dated 1613.

The castle is surrounded by a barbican with what were originally four round towers, of which only two remain today. The castle chapel is partially integrated into one of the gates. Above the gate is an empty cartouche bearing a coat of arms and the year 1737.

History

Around 1160, Helwicus de Usleybe is mentioned, who presumably inhabited a motte-and-bailey castle, the tower of which is located in the northeast corner of the present castle. With the extinction of the Knights of Unsleben, the property passed through their daughter Margarete to Christoph Truchsess von Wetzhausen. Under the Barons von Truchsess, the castle was enlarged, and the chapel and the outer bailey with its four corner towers were built.^[1]

In 1525, the peasants of the Bildhausen brigade plundered and burned the castle, but it was rebuilt just two years later. In 1560, Wilhelm von Truchsess extended the east wing using half-timbered construction. His daughter Ursula married Wilhelm von Spesshardt, bailiff of Meiningen and Massfeld. They built the spiral staircase, renovated the chapel, and covered the entire castle with ashlar plaster, which is still preserved in the inner courtyard.

Heavily indebted, the Barons von Spesshardt were forced to sell the property to Baron von Gebsattel in 1727. He, in turn, sold it in 1741 to Cornelius Baron von Habermann, Chancellor of the Court of Würzburg. The recently ennobled jurist remodeled the west wing in the Baroque style, removed the connecting link between the two wings, and replaced the drawbridge with a stone bridge.

His great-grandson Gustav, a member of the Reichstag, erected most of the courtyard buildings in 1848; his son Hugo von Habermann (1849–1929), professor at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts and co-founder of the Munich Secession, restored the timber framing and the interiors of the east wing around 1900. Through a daughter of the painter Hugo von Habermann the Younger (1899–1981), the estate passed to the Counts of Waldburg-Wolfegg.

Web links

Unsleben Water Castle (official website, german)

Friends of Castle Unsleben

Literature (german)

• Chronik von Unsleben. 2002.
• Die Kunstdenkmäler von Unterfranken & Aschaffenburg. Teil 22, Band 3 von Kunstdenkmäler von Bayern, Felix Mader, Oldenbourg, 1922.
• Franz Bungert: Die von Spessart als Guts- und Schloßherren in Unsleben. In: Heimat-Jahrbuch des Landkreises Rhön-Grabfeld, Bd. 22 (2000) 145–151.
• Franz Bungert: Der Ursprung der Truchsesse von Wetzhausen zu Unsleben. In: Heimat-Jahrbuch des Landkreises Rhön-Grabfeld, Bd. 23 (2001) 218–228.
• Josef Hesselbach: Das Rittergut in Unsleben. In: Heimat-Jahrbuch des Landkreises Rhön-Grabfeld, Bd. 32 (2010). 96