Wandsbeker Schloss

The Wandsbeker Schloss was a late Baroque manor house in the Hamburg district of Marienthal. Built between 1772 and 1778, it stood on the remains of an older water castle called the Wandesburg. Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann commissioned the new building after demolishing the previous house, creating one of the region’s most celebrated estates. The estate became a hub for culture and society under the Schimmelmann family. Regular visitors included poets Matthias Claudius and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. The manor’s gardens, designed by Carl Gottlob Horn, marked the transition from Baroque to landscape gardening. The estate passed through several notable owners before its decline. After Schimmelmann’s death in 1782, his son Christian divided the property into royal and noble shares. The noble share, including the manor, fell into neglect due to the owner’s absence. Ernst von Schimmelmann later sold the estate to Johann Anton Wilhelm von Carstenn in 1857. Carstenn parcelled the grounds for villas and demolished the manor in 1861. Only the park’s public green spaces survived, purchased by the local administration in 1860. Today, no visible traces of the Wandesburg or the manor remain. Street names like Schloßstraße and Schloßgarten mark their former location. Some fragments survive, including a coat of arms once displayed in Eichtalpark and now kept in a wing of the Wandsbek district office. Replicas of two lion sculptures and two sandstone vases from the park stand at Wandsbek market. The vases, brought from Dresden in 1757, have been protected since 1943. An underground remnant of the Wandesburg was added to the list of archaeological monuments in 2009.