Upper Castle

Not far from the Gatehouse, but outside the castle island, stands the Lower Castle. This Baroque building was erected in 1735 on the occasion of the marriage of the so-called "Prince of Mirow" Karl (Ludwig Friedrich), a younger prince of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, to Elisabeth Albertine. Several children of the couple were born here, among them Adolf Friedrich IV and Karl II, later regents of the Strelitz part of the country, as well as Sophie (Charlotte), the later Queen of England. After Adolf Friedrich IV ascended the throne, the ducal family moved to the main residence of Neustrelitz. Princely court life ceased in Mirow, and the castle stood largely empty after 1761. In 1820, a teacher training college moved into the Lower Castle, where elementary school teachers for villages and towns in the Strelitz part of the country were trained for more than a century.