Gereuth Castle

The Baroque three-wing complex opens to the north towards the castle square and the elevated parish church. The courtyard of honor is enclosed by a wrought-iron gate and a stone portal building with a triangular gable and the coat of arms of Greiffenclau-Vollraths. Until the 19th century, the castle was surrounded by a moat. On the north side, the bricked moat with a stone bridge is still present, while on the other sides, the retaining walls were demolished in 1878. Four octagonal, dome-crowned pavilions at the corners of the rectangular, 86x75 m castle grounds have been preserved.

The castle building is designed with three stories. Above a brick sandstone plinth rise the lower ground floor and two upper floors. The corners are articulated with Tuscan pilasters, and the floors are separated by simple string courses. The windows consistently have profiled frames; the window openings are almost square on the ground floor, tall and rectangular on the upper floors, and formerly had green shutters. The architectural elements were originally painted in a light ochre tone and are now visible stone. The wall surfaces still bear their original light beige plaster. The slate-covered hip roof is interrupted by numerous projecting dormer windows. Each wing can be entered from the courtyard of honor through a portal with a segmental pediment.

Inside, the lower ground floor housed the servants' quarters and utility rooms, which is also reflected externally in the square "bastard windows". The upper floors were reserved for the lordly rooms. However, representative rooms are lacking, except for the ballroom. The complex, as a private country castle, was relatively far from the Würzburg court. The two-armed main staircase in the central building is off-center and divides the building into two L-shaped halves. The rooms are located on the outside along long corridors and are additionally axially connected on the upper floors. This allowed the servants to enter the rooms from the corridors without disturbing the lord. Only the corner rooms of the lordly floors were designed to span the entire width of the wing. One of these corner rooms is the ballroom on the second upper floor in the north of the west wing, with a representative parquet floor and a stuccoed flat ceiling.

Of the formerly rich interior furnishings, only remnants remain after several changes of ownership. The second upper floor was the most elaborately furnished, where, in addition to the ballroom, the other rooms also have parquet floors and stucco ceilings. The Baroque wall decoration of painted stucco fields is only preserved in the ballroom and one cabinet; the other rooms are furnished with wallpaper. In one room, a fabric wallpaper stretched on a wooden frame has been preserved.

Heinrich Zimmern or Joseph Greising were formerly assumed to be the master builders of the castle complex. A contract from 1705 (State Archives Bamberg) names Valentin Pezani from Würzburg as the construction manager. The "simple stonemason master" originally from Trento, from the circle of Antonio Petrini, is certainly also a possible architect for the castle building, which is oriented towards Italian early Baroque.

St. Philippus Castle Church

The current parish church is located opposite the western castle wing next to the "Old Castle". The church was built between 1713 and 1717 under the direction of Joseph Greising, to whom the castle construction was therefore often attributed in the past.

Its function as a former castle church is already evident from its unusual north-south orientation; the church faces the ballroom in the west wing. The building stands on a terrace approximately 20x20 m in size with a baluster-decorated balustrade, which compensates for the sloping terrain.

The three-story tower projecting from the facade is topped by an octagon with a lantern-crowned dome. Above the portal, a large sandstone figure of Salvator Mundi is placed in a niche. A semicircular, recessed choir on both sides was added to the rectangular nave. The windows in the nave are arranged in two stories one above the other and are separated into three axes by pilasters.

Inside, the three nave bays were vaulted with lunettes and stuccoed. The choir is separated by a profiled chancel arch and also has a lunette vault.

The furnishings were created in 1715/16 by Jacob von (van) der Auvera and the master cabinetmaker Ferdinand Billefeldt. Two side altars, the high altar, and a pulpit were commissioned. The high altar follows the model of the former high altar in Würzburg Cathedral. Four Tuscan columns support a baldachin, crowned by the Franconian ducal crown. In the center is the Madonna with Child, to the right the Evangelist John, to the left Saint Philip as the patron saint of the builder. The side altars have painted altarpieces (the right one from the 19th century) between double columns, with high superstructures above featuring the Greiffenclau coat of arms. The pulpit is adorned with sculptures of the four Evangelists and five caryatid figures (the five virtues); the sounding board bears the blessing Jesus child with the cross.