Schloss Gondorf

The Oberburg (Upper Castle, as opposed to the Niederburg, the palace known as Schloss Liebieg), also called Schloss von der Leyen, Schloss zur Leyen, Schloss Leyen or Schloss Gondorf, lies in the Gondorf district of the municipality of Kobern-Gondorf on the Moselle. It is the ancestral seat of the lords, and later princes, von der Leyen. In 2002 a bronze bust of Imperial Prince Philipp von der Leyen, created by Karol Badyna and donated by the Gondorf volunteer fire brigade, was unveiled in front of the outer bailey.

The palace is a protected cultural monument under the Monument Protection Act (DSchG) and is entered in the register of monuments of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Some of its buildings house a branch office of the Koblenz State Main Archive.

The sheltered location, protected on one side by the Moselle on a headland and on the other by the Nothbach (rerouted and built over in the 1970s), probably already offered a site for a fortified and easily defensible settlement as early as the 5th/6th century.

The extensive complex, dating from the 14th century, consists of the outer bailey, with a gatehouse added in 1527, and the core castle. The main builder, around 1560, was the Elector of Trier, John VI von der Leyen. The complex fell into decline in the following period, as the various branches of the family took up residence in the Bliesgau, Bavaria and southwestern Germany.

In the early 19th century, Imperial Count Philipp von der Leyen, by then elevated to Prince of Hohengeroldseck (part of Baden from 1819), had the castle of his ancestors partly restored. After the prince's death, his son Erwein I sold the complex, its lands and the once-important wine cellar, among others, to the municipality of Gondorf.

Machine-translated from “Oberburg (Gondorf)” on the German Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Schloss Gondorf ranks #5,972 of 8,764 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #505 of the 618 mapped in Germany. Founded c. 1400, it is older than 53% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 649 atlas entries founded in the 14th century. 31 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Koblenz, 12 km away. It is one of the 45 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of the Moselle. It is stop 19 of 31 on the Moselle castle route, Trier to Koblenz. See how Germany compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in German) ↗