page_title: Schloss Kirchheim (Teck)
section_title: Grounds and architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Schloss Kirchheim (Teck) / Grounds and architecture
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Kirchheim. Aus dem Forstlagerbuch von Andreas Kieser. Um 1683
context_page_description: Schloss Kirchheim is a castle and palace in the old town of Kirchheim unter Teck, in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The palace was built in the 16th century by Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg as a castle and part of a greater system of defensive works. Over two centuries later, it became the dower house for the Duchy and later Kingdom of Württemberg. The palace's interior is currently arranged and furnished as it was during the residence of its final dowager, Henriette von Nassau-Weilburg.
context_section_description: Kirchheim Palace was remodeled frequently throughout its usage as a dower house by its residents. The first of these was for Franziska von Hohenheim who, in the 1790s, tasked Reinhard Heinrich Ferdinand Fischer with the expansion of the castle into a palace. Fischer added a garden and two new rooms on the casemates. The final remodeling was by Henriette von Nassau-Weilburg, and it is this arrangement and decor that presently exists at Kirchheim Palace.
  The building has an irregular diamond shape with four wings, and a deep moat. The suite for the resident dowager was the apartment on the third floor of the south wing. Past the corner tower, where the dining room is found, is an enfilade of 13 rooms in two rows, separated by a servants' passage. The first of these rooms, just off the stairs and spanning the width of the building, is the summer dining hall. This room was very important to the social life of the resident dowagers. Henriette von Nassau-Weilburg converted the hall into an antechamber while its functions moved into the octagonal tower.
  Under Franziska von Hohenheim, the dowager suite was made up of an enfilade of six rooms on its south side, and five rooms, hall, and a staircase on its north end. The southern portion was later expanded with two rooms, the Garden Rooms, built from wood which was then on top of a casemate. A watercolor painting made 14 years after Franziska's death show the walls as being covered by blue wallpaper with white curtains. Henriette von Nassau had the floors covered with vibrant carpets and new furniture, and covered the walls with new wallpaper and framed paintings. Henriette also had the Garden Room rebuilt in brick to make it habitable in the winter, and filled it with keepsakes.
  Kirchheim Palace has had several gardens. The first was laid out when the castle became a hunting retreat, but was erased by the construction of a rail line in the 19th century. Franziska von Hohenheim arranged a new garden between the stable and palace, and built a greenhouse there in 1797, but Henriette von Nassau rearranged it into an English landscape garden. Henriette laid out another two gardens where the north-west moat had been and in front of the Garden Rooms.
caption: Kirchheim Castle about 1683, here seen at the center of the city wall
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