Schloss Eichhof

Schloss Eichhof stands in the Coburg district of Scheuerfeld on a small hill above the valley of the Güßbach. First mentioned in 1440, it was once a farmstead before becoming a knight’s estate. The present building dates from the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Its two wings rise from a sandstone ground floor under a slate-clad timber-framed upper storey. A turret-like lantern once crowned the ridge where the wings meet. The estate passed through several noble families after Nicolaus Zech, the duke’s finance minister, received it in 1598. His son Markus and daughter Helena inherited it, and Helena’s husband, Johann Christian von Merklin, later owned the whole property. In 1765 the Merklins sold the estate, which returned to ducal hands in 1864. The buildings were altered in 1895 for Prince von Ratibor and again in the early 20th century. Visitors approach across the courtyard to find a two-storey structure with six-by-four window bays on the older wing. A narrower north-eastern wing has a gabled dormer added in 1895 and a cast-iron spiral staircase leading to the garden. Inside, two rooms retain baroque stucco ceilings. Below, a 16th-century barrel-vaulted cellar can still be entered through a descending tunnel. The surrounding farm continues to breed horses today.