Polle Castle

The origins of Polle Castle are presumed to be around the year 1200. It was first documented in 1285 as the “Everstein Castle” and served as the ancestral seat of the Counts of Everstein. In 1407, Duke Henry I of Brunswick-Lüneburg conquered the castle during the Everstein Feud. A year later, the entire county, and thus Polle Castle, definitively fell to the Welfs. During the Thirty Years' War, the castle was besieged, captured, and plundered by Field Marshal Tilly in 1623. In 1641, Swedish troops set the castle ablaze with their cannons. After the war, the lower castle was rebuilt starting in 1656, while the upper castle remained a ruin. An administrative building in the Weser Renaissance style in the lower castle was destroyed in World War II, with only the Renaissance portal surviving. Between 1984 and 1988, the castle complex underwent renovation, and archaeological excavations took place from 2007 to 2009.