Schloss Schönburg

Schloss Schönburg stands on the edge of Niederbayern near Pocking, a three-storey baroque building raised in 1676–80 on the site of a vanished medieval castle. The west front shows short wings and the east front two corner towers, while a two-storey cloister-like passage links the house to the parish church. A long 18th-century gatehouse with former gamekeeper’s rooms and stables faces the castle square, and beyond it a walled ornamental garden holds a small water basin. The castle’s owners shaped its history: the Schönburg family, raised to barons in 1654, built the present structure before passing it in 1694 to the Closen family. In the 1740s the Closens added the gatehouse where the chaplain lived. The Leyden counts took over in 1801, and in 1842 Gräfin Melanie restored the building. The Arco-Zinnebergs bought it in 1876; their daughter Mechtilde, born here in 1879, later became a well-known writer under the name Mechtilde Lichnowsky. Visitors walk through the gatehouse into the castle square, then enter the main building with its baroque west front and corner towers. The cloister passage leads to the parish church, and the garden south of the house offers a quiet basin surrounded by low walls. The whole ensemble is recognised as a protected monument, its layers of history still visible in stone and plan.