Schloss Kreuth

Schloss Kreuth stands on a low hill about 455 metres above sea level, a short distance north-west of the small town of Heideck in Mittelfranken. The site was once two separate estates called Oberes and Unteres Kreuth. In 1570 the Nuremberg patrician Bernhard Nützel asked the town council for permission to build a manor house there. His wife Edeltraut Harsdörfer joined him in settling the place, and both died in Kreuth and were buried in the parish church of St Johannes the Baptist in Heideck. Their son-in-law Julius Grätz gained noble status for the estate, freeing it from Heideck’s control. The present buildings date mainly from the late 18th and late 19th centuries. The two-storey main house has a mansard roof added in the 1780s, while a north wing built in 1881 carries another mansard roof and a round tower on its west side. A second courtyard is enclosed by several outbuildings, including a gatehouse with a wrought-iron door and a small bell turret. A single avenue of lime trees, planted around 1800, leads up to the entrance. Inside the courtyard the main house and wings form an L-shape around a gravel forecourt. The gatehouse still bears the 1878 date and the arms of the Princes of Oettingen, who enlarged the baroque core in that year. Six princes and princesses of their family were born at Kreuth. A fire in 1979 destroyed the west and north wings, but the remaining buildings house a riding school and a small hotel. The whole group stands quietly above the surrounding farmland, its slate roofs and lime avenue giving it a calm, ordered air.