Schloss Ivenack

Schloss Ivenack stands ten kilometres east of Stavenhagen in the Mecklenburgische Seenplatte district. The present building began as a Cistercian convent founded in 1252 by Reimbern von Stove. After the Reformation the nuns left and the site became a ducal estate with a Fürstenstuhl. A new manor house rose in the 18th century, then enlarged in the early 19th century to its present shape. The estate became famous for its centuries-old oaks and the thoroughbred stud of the Counts of Plessen.

The Counts of Plessen turned Ivenack into one of Mecklenburg’s best-known stud farms. Their Vollblutzucht produced horses that carried the Ivenack name across the region. The park still shelters ancient oaks planted when the stud flourished. Visitors walk beneath gnarled branches that have stood for hundreds of years. The estate’s history is written on two bells in the nearby church, each bearing Latin inscriptions that record its founding and the Reformation.

Inside the manor house visitors find rooms arranged around a central courtyard. The façade shows the 18th-century style with later classical additions. Outside, gravel paths wind through the park where the oldest oaks reach more than thirty metres high. The Counts of Plessen’s stables and training grounds lie beyond the trees. From the upper windows the park stretches out to the fields where the stud once grazed its mares.