Schloss

Schloss Kirchlauter stands at the heart of the village of Kirchlauter in the Haßberge district of Lower Franconia. The Baroque complex, shaped like an angle, occupies a raised island surrounded by a brick-lined moat. Its two three-storey wings rise from a square plinth, their red-tiled roofs crowned by volutes and obelisks above the west and south gables. The building owes its present form to Johann Gottfried von Guttenberg, prince-bishop of Würzburg, who began the water-castle in 1689. Heinrich Zimmer, a master in Antonio Petrini’s circle, directed the work. Inside, the east wing preserves the ancestral hall with rich stucco decoration from about 1730 and rows of oil portraits. Outside, a sandstone bridge with balusters and piers leads to the courtyard portal, where two stone angels hold the bishop’s coat of arms. A walled park surrounds the moat, dotted with Baroque garden figures and an orangery. South-west of the main castle, the earlier Guttenberg residence survives as a two-storey building with a timbered upper floor and corner turret. The estate closes with service courts, one of which bears the Guttenberg-Horneck marriage arms carved around 1720.