Ludwigsburg Manor

The Manor House

The manor house developed from a series of previous buildings. A 14th-century moated castle was followed from 1590 by a regional double house, which was largely demolished or redesigned into the current Baroque building between 1730 and 1740. The foundations and the cellar of the previous building are still preserved today, which is also evident in the exterior, where the typical arrangement of brick layers and horizontal sandstone bands characteristic of the Nordic Renaissance is still preserved in various places in the masonry. Ludwigsburg is one of the largest Baroque manor houses in the former Duchy of Schleswig. The manor house from 1740 rises as a large, cuboid building directly from its moat. It has four floors; two full and two half-floors, and is covered by a mighty mansard roof. The house is built entirely of brick, and the facades are simply modeled in Baroque forms. The garden and courtyard facades have nine window axes, and the narrow sides of the building have four window axes.

The two-part floor plan of the manor house still refers to the double house of the 16th century. In accordance with the later redesign of the building, the interiors of the manor house are also kept in the Baroque style of the 18th century. However, the fixed wall decoration of the rooms is not completely preserved, as a fire in the 20th century destroyed parts of the original furnishings, especially on the upper floors. The largest room in the building is the festively designed Golden Hall in the Louis-seize style, which, together with the adjacent Small Hall on the bel étage, forms the representative center of the house. A special feature at Ludwigsburg is the so-called Bunte Kammer (Colorful Chamber), whose furnishings date back to the second half of the 17th century. It is a paneled room decorated with 145 small portraits, emblems, and aphorisms. The small-format paintings partly depict the listed quotes, but also images of the old Kohøved manor house or the Gottorfer Neuwerkgarten can be found. The Bunte Kammer is unique in this form in Schleswig-Holstein; only at Gut Gaarz near Oldenburg is there a similar, albeit more simply designed, room.

Courtyard, Gatehouse, and Garden

To the east of the manor house is a large farmstead, which received its current form in the mid-20th century. Until 1967, the square was bordered by the so-called Krummhaus, a large, semicircular building from the 18th century, which, together with the manor house, formed a large architectural unit in the Baroque style. The house, presumably built by Johann Gottfried Rosenberg from 1740, served as a farm building; its demolition took place because its dimensions no longer met the requirements of modern agriculture. In its place, a round courtyard remained, and sober functional buildings were erected on the area behind it; only the end pavilions remained. Other outbuildings adjoined the Krummhaus, which today form the southern boundary of the courtyard. The most significant of these buildings is the old gatehouse of the estate, which dates back to the 16th century but was redesigned several times in later periods. Its field side is adorned with nine cross-shaped sandstone tablets, which show, among other things, the coats of arms of the Rantzaus and the Sehestedt.

To the west of the manor house, a Baroque garden existed since the 18th century. The once strictly French-inspired layout was redesigned in the style of English landscape gardens from 1845, although the basic structure formed by moats and Baroque avenues has been preserved to the present day.