Local government
CastleGaildorf
New Castle Gaildorf
The New Castle, since 1967 the Town Hall of the city of Gaildorf on the Kocher, was built in 1846 by Countess Amalie von Waldeck-Limpurg (1785–1852), the widow of Count Georg Friedrich (1785–1826) of Waldeck-Pyrmont and Limpurg-Gaildorf, on the north side of the Kocher in an extensive park as a pavilion.
After the Waldeck-Limpurg dominion came into the possession of the House of Bentinck in 1868 due to the marriage of Mechthild Karoline Emma von Waldeck-Bergheim (1826–1899) to Count Karl Anton Ferdinand von Bentinck, the so-called Villa Waldeck was extended twice (1880 and 1896) to serve the Counts of Bentinck and Waldeck-Limpurg as a so-called Comital Bentinck Castle as a summer residence until 1918.
During the Second World War, the castle was used for storing cultural assets and from 1943–1945 as an officers' mess by the SS. In 1945/46 it was an American officers' mess and thereafter until 1965 an old people's home.
In 1967, the New Castle became the Town Hall of the city of Gaildorf.
Castle Park+
On the castle park grounds located between the Kocher and the New Castle, east of the castle, in the area of today's Parkschule, was the entrance to an alum and vitriol mine operated from 1763 to 1899. In 1832, the skull of a Mastodonsaurus giganteus, a carnivorous amphibian, was discovered there; of this species, which became extinct over 200 million years ago, there are only two significant sites in the world, Gaildorf and Kupferzell.
Today, the park grounds house a school center with the Parkschule (primary and secondary school), the Schloss-Realschule, and the Schenk-von-Limpurg-Gymnasium.
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