Schloss Thorn is a former castle, that has been turned into a stately home. It lies in the locality of Schloss Thorn, in the municipality of

Palzem Palzem is a municipality in the Trier-Saarburg district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. History From 18 July 1946 to 6 June 1947 Palzem, in its then municipal boundary, formed part of the Saar Protectorate The Saar Protectorate (german: S ...

in the ''Landkreis'' Trier-Saarburg, Rhineland-Palatinate. The current owners are the Barons von Hobe-Gelting. Schloss Thorn is still in use as a residence today, and wine is produced from the surrounding vineyards, which have been family-owned since 1534, like the castle. It is the oldest castle vineyard on the Moselle; it also has the only preserved tree wine press of Europe.

Location

Schloss Thorn stands on a hillock that overlooks the access to the

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; german: Mosel ; lb, Musel ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it jo ...

valley and to the

Saargau The Saargau was a Frankish Gau county (''Gaugrafschaft''). Today the name is given to the ridge between the rivers Saar and Moselle in Germany and, in the south, the region between the Saar and the French border. County of Saargau The Saa ...

. It is the south-western corner of the ''Landkreis'' Trier-Saarburg. It lies just across the river from the Luxembourg town of Remich.

History

Due to the existence of a ford here, the Romans built a guard tower on a protruding rock here to protect and observe the crossing. This tower would give the later medieval castle its name, the Latin "turris" meaning "tower". Schloss Thorn was built on the ruins of the probably rectangular, medieval castle guarded by round corner towers. Until the 16th century it was a fief of the lords of Rollingen (hereditary marshals of Luxembourg) to the lords of Bübingen. Then it passed to the ownership of the lords of Musiel, where it remained until the end of the 19th century. It had become decrepit by the end of the 15th century, and was rebuilt in 1536 by the new owner apart from two towers and a part of the defensive wall. In 1800, it was rebuilt by the owning family into more of a stately home and the old defensive buildings were turned into garden terraces. One of the two towers left after the 16th century renovations, the round tower at the south-eastern corner was destroyed by bombardment in 1945. The second, a rectangular tower that used to be inhabitable, is now a gate tower. Due to the rebuilding and renovation work carried over hundreds of years, the castle now shows characteristics of the architectural styles of the Middle Ages, through to the Renaissance,

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

and Empire styles.

References

External links

Schloss Thorn
{{coord, 49, 33, 07, N, 6, 23, 01, E, region:DE-RP_type:landmark_source:kolossus-dewiki, display=title Castles in Rhineland-Palatinate