Schloss Ribbeck

Schloss Ribbeck stands in Ribbeck, a village in the Havelland district of Brandenburg. The present building is a two-storey plastered mansion built in 1893 in the neo-Baroque style. It replaced an earlier house that Theodor Fontane described in his poem as a ‘double-roofed house’. The old date 1822 is still carved in the south gable.

The house is worth visiting for its links with Fontane and the Ribbeck family. Fontane’s poem made the name Ribbeck famous across Germany. The family owned the estate for centuries, from the early 16th century until after the Second World War. Their history is told in the restored interiors and the small family cemetery beside the house.

Visitors find a symmetrical building with thirteen windows on the front and five on the side. A carriage drive leads to a three-bay loggia with round-headed windows. Inside, the cellars preserve traces of earlier phases, from a 17th-century barrel vault to a 19th-century flat ceiling. The cemetery contains simple gravestones for family members who died between 1882 and 1979.