Ilsenburg Castle

The origins of the current Ilsenburg Castle lie in a Benedictine monastery that was dissolved in the 16th century. The monastery's possessions passed to the Counts of Stolberg, who had held patronage since 1429. After the destruction of their Wernigerode Castle during the Thirty Years' War, Count Henrich Ernst moved his court to Ilsenburg in 1648, occupying a dowager's seat built between 1609 and 1615. For about six decades, this estate served as the seat of government for the county. Around 1700, Count Ernst had the former monastery church redesigned, creating baroque carvings for the high altar, pulpit, and baptismal angel. In 1710, the seat of government returned to Wernigerode. Between 1861 and 1863, Count Otto zu Stolberg-Wernigerode had the buildings above the Ilse expanded for his uncle Botho, adopting the Romanesque style of the monastery complex. The construction was supervised by Karl Frühling. From 1897, Ilsenburg was the dowager's seat of Princess Anna and her daughter Elisabeth. In 1929, the castle was leased to the Old Prussian Union and served from 1930 as an ecclesiastical foreign seminary, which was dissolved in 1936. Afterwards, it housed a recreation home and a preacher's seminary.