Skokloster Castle

Skokloster Castle (Swedish: Skoklosters slott) is a Swedish Baroque castle built between 1654 and 1676 by Carl Gustaf Wrangel, located on a peninsula of Lake Mälaren between Stockholm and Uppsala. It became a state museum in the 1970s and displays collections of paintings, furniture, textiles and tableware as well as books and weapons that amount to 20,000 items.

The castle was built in the Baroque style between 1654 and 1676 by the wealthy military commander count Carl Gustaf Wrangel on a peninsula of Lake Mälaren between Stockholm and Uppsala. It was designed mainly by architect Casper Vogell, and other architects involved were Jean de la Vallée and Nicodemus Tessin the Elder. It is probable, that castle was built based on Ujazdów Castle in Warsaw, Poland.

The castle is a monument to the Swedish Age of Greatness, a period in the middle of the 17th century when Sweden expanded to become one of the major powers in Europe. The death of Wrangel in 1676 meant that the castle was never truly completed. Nils Brahe the younger who inherited the castle after Wrangel's death, had his own family castles and did not complete the interiors. Thus a large banqueting hall remains largely in the same condition as the builders left it in the summer of 1676. It is now called the Unfinished Hall. Skokloster Castle is the only building in Europe with a complete 17th-century building site of equal authenticity. Alongside the Unfinished Hall there are a number of other related items from the same period, as several hundred tools and about a dozen books on construction.

The castle was converted into a permanent residence after the Second World War, when the von Essen family moved in. An apartment was built on the bottom floor with central heating, a modern bathroom and electricity. The upper floors were to be preserved as a museum. The renovation was carried out in two steps in 1947 and 1952, creating a modern living space inside the castle.

In 1967, the von Essen family, who inherited the castle from Brahe when the family died out in 1930, sold the castle and its contents to the Swedish government; Skokloster Castle became a state museum and government agency named the Royal Armoury and Skokloster Castle with the Hallwyl Museum Foundation (LSH). the family still resides in the vicinity.

Text adapted from “Skokloster Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Skokloster Castle ranks #521 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #8 of the 205 mapped in Sweden. Founded 1676, it is older than 24% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 580 atlas entries founded in the 17th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 9,460 times in the last 60 days, more than 92% of the atlas. Wikidata records about 86,000 visitors in 2017. 10 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Uppsala, 16 km away. See how Sweden compares in the castle statistics.

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