Schloss Schöckingen

Schloss Schöckingen stands in the village core of Schöckingen, twenty kilometres northwest of Stuttgart. The complex covers about twenty thousand square metres and includes buildings from the 15th to the 18th centuries. The oldest part is a late-Gothic gatehouse dated 1430, still surrounded by water-filled moats. A polygonal courtyard links the gatehouse to the main house, a three-storey timber-framed building from the 16th century. The east side of the courtyard is framed by long former farm buildings with richly decorated gables. A small detached farmhouse, the Maierhaus, stands between the main house and the farm range. The so-called Hinteres Schloss, or Gaisberg Building, sits on Schillerstraße. Its ground floor is solid masonry, above which two yellow-plastered timber storeys rise to a steep tiled roof. The south-east façade carries a carved round-arched portal dated 1754, framed by the builder’s initials and coat of arms. Inside, fragments of original stucco ceilings survive. A landscaped park with ponds and a water fountain spreads north and east of the main buildings, offering quiet walks among mature trees. The complex was first mentioned in the 13th century as a lowland castle of the Lords of Nippenburg. After the Thirty Years War the estate passed to the Dukes of Württemberg and then to the Freiherren von Gaisberg-Schöckingen in 1660. Today the buildings serve as private residences, a congress centre and headquarters of the International Cultural Dialogue Foundation. The former Spanish king Juan Carlos visited in 2006 to support the foundation’s work.