To be privately owned
CastleUmkirch
Umkirch Castle
Umkirch Castle, also known as Hohenzollern Castle or Royal Romanian Castle, is a castle of the Swabian Hohenzollerns in Umkirch in the Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald district in Baden-Württemberg.
Among the various noble families who had their seat in Umkirch in the Middle Ages, the Lords of Tübingen are also presumed to have lived in the castle in 1474. Members of the Roggenbach and Beroldingen families succeeded in enlarging their property before it passed to the Kageneck'sche Majorat in 1740. After the old castle was demolished in 1743, the central part was rebuilt. The two side wings followed between 1788 and 1789.
In 1785, the property had been converted into an allod for Flora von Kageneck (1779–1857). She was the daughter of Friedrich von Kageneck and Maria Theresia von Salm-Reifferscheidt, and the cousin of the Austrian statesman Metternich. Flora von Kageneck married Count Eugen von Wrbna on June 20, 1798. In 1816/17, under her, the castle was expanded in the Italian country house style and the belvedere was added. The Kageneck-Wrbna coat of arms can still be found in the gable today.
In 1827, Umkirch was acquired by Grand Duchess Stéphanie of Baden for 345,000 guilders. The building served as a summer residence in July and August. In the inheritance contract of June 29, 1860, the Grand Duchess stipulated that her daughter Princess Josephine of Baden should receive the castle estate. The princess was the wife of Karl Anton von Hohenzollern. On May 3, 1887, Josephine made Umkirch a Stammgut, meaning inalienable property. The property passed to her son Karl, who was the Romanian king, on June 19, 1900. The king died in 1914. The castle then went to Prince Friedrich Victor von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen at the end of 1916, who used it as a summer residence. The outbreak of the First World War had delayed the inheritance.
In addition to Friedrich Wilhelm Prince von Hohenzollern (1924–2010), the two princes Ferfried von Hohenzollern and Leopold von Bayern were born in the castle in 1943.
From 1946 to 1946, General Pierre Pène, the governor for the state of Baden on behalf of the French occupation forces, resided in the castle.
After Friedrich Victor's death in 1965, his son Friedrich Wilhelm received the castle estate, which is still owned by the Swabian Hohenzollerns today. Since 2010, Karl Friedrich von Hohenzollern has been the owner.
Parklands+
The Princely Hohenzollern Castle Park Umkirch, belonging to the castle, is a landscape park covering about eleven hectares. South of the castle park is another park, which goes back to a donation of an approximately eight-hectare plot of land from Friedrich von Hohenzollern to the Portuguese Queen Auguste Viktoria von Hohenzollern. She had a neo-baroque country house built there and named it Fulwell Park, after her exile residence Fulwell in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.
After Auguste Viktoria's death, Fulwell Park returned to Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenzollern, who sold the park and castle. The now also approximately eleven-hectare estate is today called Queen Auguste Victoria Park. The park has been owned by the publisher Werner Semmler since 1974 and was awarded the European Garden Culture Creation Prize in 2002.
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Source: Wikipedia · Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Image: Max Hohenzollern / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
This description draws on the facts documented in the linked Wikipedia article; Wikipedia content is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Wording and editing: Mobile History.
Location: 48.0306, 7.7603