Sweden
Sölvesborgs slott ranks #6,191 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #169 of the 209 mapped in Sweden. 5 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Kristianstad, 29 km away. See how Sweden compares in the castle statistics.
Sölvesborgs slott is a castle ruin in Sölvesborg parish in Sölvesborg municipality. The reason it came to be called a palace is that the castle was on some occasions used as overnight lodging for royalty and therefore came to be called the palace in popular speech.
The castle ruin lies about five hundred metres north-east of the medieval town centre of Sölvesborg. The castle area lies strategically between the sea and Ryssberget. The castle completely dominated the bay that cuts into the land here and which during the Middle Ages must have been an important landing place for the border trade between the Danish Blekinge coast and the Swedish Värend area inland in Småland. Today there remains a high mound with ruins of the great defensive tower as well as cellars of the surrounding courtyard buildings. A moat fifteen metres wide surrounded the mound, and west of it lay the medieval outer bailey with barns and stable buildings.
During excavations of the castle mound in the years 1940-1942 the excavator, curator Lars Göran Kindström, was able to establish three different building phases before the present castle complex was erected. When this last castle was built the mound was raised by about three metres. A tower with a diameter of 17 metres was built up on the mound. The wall thickness itself was an impressive 5.5 metres. From the round base the tower probably had a sixteen-sided form in its lower part, while in its upper part it was octagonal. A projecting stair tower was the connecting link between the various storeys.
The tower was erected in so-called shell-wall technique. Between an outer and an inner brick shell it was filled up with mortar and large stones. Today the tower remains only to a height of about eleven metres. Almost all the brick was carried away during all the years that the ruin had to serve as a quarry. A deep cellar room is preserved.
Machine-translated from “Sölvesborgs slott” on the Swedish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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