Hammerstein Castle

Hammerstein Castle is a castle complex in the Lower Saxon municipality of Apelern.

The Billung ancestral estate of Apelern, already mentioned in 1055, had a turbulent history of ownership before the estate passed into the possession of Baron Jobst von Münchhausen around 1550 as a fief of the Counts of Holstein-Schaumburg. After the extinction of this Münchhausen line (another still owns the neighboring moated castle Münchhausen in Apelern), the Schaumburg Chancellor Anton Wietersheim acquired the property in Apelern on March 1, 1580, which had been converted into a free court by Count Otto IV of Holstein-Schaumburg in 1556, and which the Chancellor gradually enlarged in area. The single-wing castle from 1590, which rises over a rectangular, elongated floor plan on the northern edge of the castle island in an east-west orientation, follows the type of a four-story building with a gable roof, which is accessed by a polygonal spiral staircase tower positioned in front of the building.

On June 30, 1673, the Royal Swedish Major General Friderich Christoph Freiherr v. Hammerstein-Gesmold acquired the manor and castle. Friderich Christoph comes from the noble family of the Barons v. Hammerstein, first documented in tournament books on November 5, 948, who live in the castle today in their 12th generation. The family's ancestral seat is an imperial castle, devastated by French troops in 1688 and since then preserved only as a ruin, which thrones on a rock above the Rhine opposite Andernach.

The garden bordering the castle island to the south was – as it is today – divided into several garden rooms separated by rows of trees and hornbeam hedges. The restoration of the garden rooms in 2004 was based on historical garden plans and inventories. In particular, the garden plans of the Royal Hanoverian Court and Chamber Junker Börries Friederich Karl von Hammerstein were used for the restoration. He had visited the gardens of the English royal castles on his travels and, between 1805 and 1806, in addition to the existing kitchen, fruit, and pleasure gardens, realized the creation of an English garden under the direction of the Electoral Hessian Court Gardener Homburg in Apelern. The current castle garden contains, among other things, trees over 200 years old, a 150 m long lime avenue from 1918, and 5400 perennials that transform the castle garden into a sea of flowers from spring to autumn. Further restorations are planned; for example, in 2009, a 36m long water basin with fountains was restored based on garden plans from 1767, and in 2011, a maze was created.