Salder House (German: Schloss Salder) is a stately home in the Renaissance style in Salder, a village in the borough of Salzgitter in Lower Saxony. It was built in 1608 for the lords of Saldern by master builder, Paul Francke, by order of Kriegsrat David Sachses of Wolfenbüttel.

In 1695, the heir to the throne, Augustus William of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel bought the complex and had major restoration work carried out on it.

Since 1962 Salzgitter's town museum has been located in Salder House and may be visited free of charge. Its major exhibition themes are geology, prehistory and protohistory as well as the history of the town and 31 villages of Salzgitter borough from the Baroque period to the 20th century. In the division titled "From Ore to Steel" (Vom Erz zum Stahl) various models are displayed, including one of the Gebrüder Schreitel iron foundry.

A wide variety of open-air events are held in the courtyard during the summer months.

Salder House

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Lichtenberg Castle (German: Burg Lichtenberg), also called the Heinrichsburg ("Henry Castle"), is a ruined castle dating to the 12th century in the Lichtenberge hills (the northwestern part of the Salzgitter Hills) near Salzgitter in the German state of Lower Saxony. The ruins are found south of and above the Salzgitter suburb of Lichtenberg on the steep summit of the Burgberg (241 metres high).

The site, which is extremely good from a strategic perspective, shows the ideal type of ground plan of a hill castle from the High Middle Ages. The builder of the most important fortifications of the Welf dynasty was Duke Henry the Lion. The castle was built to counter the Bishopric of Hildesheim and its Hohenstaufen neighbour in Goslar. In spite of numerous conflicts of those times it was not destroyed until 1552 by the cannons of a mercenary army.

The castle comprises an upper and lower wards. The upper ward lies on an oval plateau, 45 x 80 metres in area. Here there are various residential and domestic buildings, towers and the castle well, surrounded by a 1.6 metre thick enceinte. In a residential building measuring 10 x 8.5 metres is a ladies' apartment (Kemenate) an old hot air heating system was uncovered during excavations. A little below the inner ward there is a 32 x 8 metre palas, with its great hall, as well as a neighbouring tower and dungeon.

The first construction phase of the castle is dated to the 12th century and its expansion was probably carried out between 1170 and 1180. The large outer ward belongs to a more recent building phase. It was surrounded by a rampart and moat system as well as an enceinte with 13 demi-bastions. Of these, parts of the gate wall and the associated moat have survived. The only traces of former buildings are their individual foundation fragments.

Lichtenberg Castle is first mentioned in 1180. The Welf duke, Henry the Lion (1129–1195) used it as a bulwark against the Hohenstaufen emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. The castle lay on the border of the Welf principality and threatened the neighbouring, non-Welf territories of the Bishopric of Hildesheim as the imperial estate of Goslar. In the course of his imperial expedition against Henry the Lion, Frederick Barbarossa captured the castle in 1180 after a short siege. The "Lion" did not get it back until after the peace treaty with the Hohenstaufen emperor, Henry VI in 1194. A year later, Henry the Lion, lord of the castle, died.

In 1198, the Hohenstaufen fraction in the empire elected Philip of Swabia as king, whereupon the Welf party choose Otto IV (the 16-year-old son of Henry the Lion) as antiking. Otto IV took advantage of the power base of Lichtenberg Castle in order to inflict damage on the imperial town of Goslar that was loyal to the Hohenstaufens. In order to safeguard the imperial estate of Goslar, in 1206 the Hohenstaufens had their imperial advocate (Reichsvogt) from Goslar, Count Hermann of Wöltingerode, advance against the castle which, rather surprisingly he managed to conquer. In early June 1206 Count Gunzelin of Wolfenbüttel unsuccessfully besieged Lichtenberg Castle, after Count Hermann had captured it and from there he conducted raids and forays in the surrounding region as well as in the area of Peine, Gunzelin's county.

When Otto IV became recognised as the only king in 1208 (after the murder of his adversary), the castle fell back into Welf hands. In 1218 he died and the castle was inherited by Duke Otto of Brunswick and Lüneburg, the Child. After his death, his son, Duke John of Brunswick and Lüneburg, inherited the estates and lordship of Lichtenberg. Periodically the castle was enfeoffed to the town of Brunswick, but in 1365 it was redeemed again by the lords of Saldern. They operated from the castle as robber knights; their raids being reported in the Brunswick book of fees in 1379-82. The noble von Saldern family was driven from the castle in the 15th century. In the records of that period Rudolf von Garßenbüttel and Herwig von Uetze are named as advocates (Vögte).

In 1552 units under Count Vollrad of Mansfeld of the Schmalkaldic League advanced on the castle. He had invaded the Duchy of Brunswick with around 5,400 landsknechts and 2,100 horsemen and had already devastated towns in the Harz Foreland. The troops fired on the castle with heavy cannon, including large calibre Fürmösers (mortars). Since then Lichtenberg Castle has lain in ruins, its use as a quarry to build the state farm (Staatsdomäne) of Lichtenberg only added to its demise. In the same year Mansfeld appeared in like manner before Neuhaus Castle in Wolfsburg.

In the 19th century the castle ruins attracted public interest. The Bismarck era was responsible for an increased awareness of history and the slow awakening of nationalist ideas after the founding of the German Empire in 1871.

Since 1892, there has been a Society for the Preservation of Lichtenberg Castle, which was refounded in 1995 as the "Friends of Lichtenberg Castle" (200 members). In 1861 the bergfried, which had become a 15 metre high ruin, collapsed and was demolished. Around 1900, the preservation society built a new tower on the old foundations, with the same hexagonal plan, which today has a wooden viewing platform with a height of about 25 metres. From the observation deck there are good views over the Harz Foreland to the Brocken. Investigations of the castle well showed it to be about 60 m deep and dug by hand. Since 2005, there has been a replica trebuchet, a medieval catapult engine, on the castle site. Next to the castle is a tourist restaurant with a beer garden and hotel.

Lichtenberg Castle (Salzgitter)

Wolfenbüttel Palace contains the only state and private apartments of the High and Late Baroque in Niedersachsen. For some 400 years up to the year 1754, the palace served as the residence of the Dukes of Braunschweig (Brunswick) and Lüneburg. Created from a medieval castle and a Renaissance palace, the superb facades and exceptional state apartments of Wolfenbüttel Palace now make it a complete baroque artwork.

Various notable personalities of German and European history were born in the palace, grew up here or were active at the court. The later Empress Elisabeth Christine – the wife of Emperor Charles VI, mother of Empress Maria Theresa and grandmother of the French Queen Marie Antoinette – was born here, as was Duchess Anna Amalia of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach, who gave her name to the famous Weimar Library. Two famous visitors to the palace were Electress Sophie of Hannover and her son, the later King George I of Great Britain, while other illustrious visitors to Wolfenbüttel Palace included Tsar Peter the Great of Russia and the Prussian King Frederick William I, the Soldier King, and his son Frederick the Great.

The ducal apartments are the only ones of their kind in Niedersachsen and here one can gain an idea of everyday courtly life in the age of absolutism. Every Sunday at 10.00 am, visitors can experience various aspects of the courtly culture during a guided tour.

Wolfenbüttel Palace

The Wohldenberg Castle is a ruin, located about one kilometer southwest of the small town Sillium. Sillium belongs to the municipality Holle in the district of Hildesheim (eastern Lower Saxony, Germany). Sillium’s emblem shows also the castle complex.

The Wohldenberg castle is a hill castle situated on the north western extensions of the Hainberg. It was built on top of a former offering stone to the pagan German deity Wodan on the 218 m high Wohldenberg, which is an elongate back of a mountain situated eastern as well as above the Nette valley. Because of strategic reasons the castle was built on a back of a mountain. The escarpments around the complex made it difficult to occupy. Here the northern entrance to the Ambergau was located and below the castle the trading route “Frankfurther Straße” with the route Hildesheim – Goslar crossed.

The castle area was separated into an outer bailey and main castle. Each had one inner yard, once there were even three of those inner yards. Still today the entrance to the bailey of the castle occurs by a gatehouse with a gate tower and a corner tower. Over the past moat spreads a bridge like driveway. In the upper part of the past main castle, which is not cognizable as this today anymore, is situated the 32 m high Bergfried. Other still existing buildings and ruins are parts of the up to 2 m thick enclosing wall and also the Catholic church St. Hubertus (1731), which was constructed baroque styled and arose from the former castle chapel.

Most likely the Wohldenberg castle was built by the count of Wöltingerode between 1153 and 1160. This process seemed to be associated with the territorial advance of this house into the Ambergau. Count Ludolf I made the Wohldenberg Castle his seat past 1174 after changing his ancestral seat in Wöltingerode into a Cistercians monastery, the monastery of Wöltingerode. Ludorf II yet called himself earl of Waldeberch in 1172. The following earls of Wöltingerode adopted more and more the name Wohldenberg. In the conflict between the emperor Frederick I called Barbossa and Henry the Lion the counts of the Wohldenberg were on the side of the emperor. For this reason the castle Wohldenberg was destroyed by Henry the Lion in 1180. Afterwards the castle was rebuilt and consequently the influence of the earls of Wohldenberg increased again. So Hermann von Wohldenberg got the Poppenburg as fief, after Conrad II, bishop of Hildesheim from 1221 – 1246, completed it as fortification.

In year 1275 the earls of Wohldenberg sold their shire including the castle to bishop Otto I of Hildesheim.

In the following years the Wohldenberg was consistently mortgaged and feoffed. But most of the time it was possessed by the bishopric of Hildesheim, as it is today again. Among other it was possessed by the earls of Wöltingerode who moved their domicile hereto in 1174. Their former domicile, castle Wöltingerode near Goslar, was at this time used as a Cistercians monastery, whose monks built up a distillery there. Temporarily robber-knights resided also at the castle Wohldenberg. In the beginning of the 14th century the castle stayed for a long time in the ownership of the Bortfeld family.

After the Hildesheim Diocesan Feud (1519 to 1523) the castle and the office Wohldenberg were given to the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. The castle owner Aschwin von Bortfeld was expulsed from the castle by the new rulers without any compensation. In 1518 he donated the still existing plague column, which is a wayside shrine called “stony Jacob”, situated sub montane. In 1704 it was revised initiated through Drost Bocholtz.

During the Thirty Years' War the Wohldenberg castle finally was destroyed by the Bockenem surrounding Imperial Army (Holy Roman Empire) in the year 1641. Subsequently the castle deteriorated further and in 1800 it was removed except from a few ruins of the wall. Beforehand inhabitants of Sillium used some of the wall bricks to raise a sheep shelter in the village and one inhabitant of Astenbeck bought the castle ruins for break off. Since 1858 the government in Hannover induced restoration actions. In this process the castle keep was added a viewing platform with merlons. Since then the castle ruin became a popular destination. The new office house located about 200 m below the castle was built in 1852 when the office Wohldenberg still had three big protectorates. After the office’s closure the author Oskar Meding lived there until 1896 and wrote in this history-charged environment his numerous historical novels. After his death the house was used as a hotel for a short time.

During World War II the keep was used as an anti-aircraft tower. Today visitors enjoy a beautiful view over the commune Holle until the mountains of the Harz. Since 1668 a vicarage of the Catholic Church’s community Wohldenberg is housed in the castle’s gate house. Sub montane a residential house is situated which was a hostelry in 1561. The new office house sub montane was bought in 1920 by the Caritas of the diocese (see also: Roman Catholic Diocese of Hildesheim). Since 1964 there is also a youth-educational institution of the Catholic Church in the “House Wohldenberg”.

Wohldenberg Castle

Richmond Castle (German: Schloss Richmond) is a castle built from 1768 to 1769 in Braunschweig, Germany for Princess (later Duchess) Augusta, wife of Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand. It lies near the Oker river in the south of the city. The architect was Carl Christoph Wilhelm Fleischer.

The castle was named after the princess's English home in Richmond Park, a royal park now in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.

The castle grounds are located along Wolfenbütteler Straße ("Wolfenbüttel Street") in the city district of Heidberg-Melverode. The building is built in Baroque style, and has a square floor plan with the entrance at one corner. The state rooms are located on the diagonal, and on either side of these, there are private rooms and a mezzanine floor. The facade is divided into pedestal, pilaster, and entablature areas, with a balustrade parapet. Projecting avant-corps and perrons (staircases) emphasize the respective ends of the corps de logis.

Compared to the original plan, the designs of the balustrade, staircases, and roof were changed over the course of time. For example, in 1785 the architect Christian Gottlob Langwagen improved the lighting in the central part of the building by installing a roof lantern with 12 windows.

In 1935, the city of Braunschweig acquired the castle grounds from Duke Ernst August. Since 1945, the building has been used for public events. The 18th-century paintings in the interior of the building were restored from 1977 to 1981.

The park was created along with the castle in 1768, in the style of a classic English landscape garden. Together with the Wörlitzer Park, it is one of the earliest landscape gardens in northern Germany.

The park was designed by the renowned English landscape architect Lancelot "Capability" Brown and is similar in structure and details to Richmond Park, a royal park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. A special feature of the park are the long lines of sight that extend far into the country from the castle. Brown's intention was possibly to create a peaceful, picturesque, ideal representation of a landscape painting.

Over the years, the original design was modified and adapted to the tastes of the respective era. From 1830, Duke Wilhelm employed the court gardener Johann Christian Burmester to expand the park significantly. Between 1833 and 1838, more buildings were added – the Ducal Villa and Schloss Neu-Richmond or Williams Castle (which no longer exists). In addition, larger water areas and an island were created.

The park has been open to the public since 1964. The nearly four-acre park, largely neglected after the end of the Second World War, was reconstructed in 1987 after the historic original design.

The castle is not open every day and can only be visited with a guide. Only the state rooms on the ground floor (the three on the diagonal and two smaller rooms facing the gardens on either side of the diagonal) are accessible to the public, because the first floor is a private residence.

In 1871, a Braunschweig brewery was named after the castle's popular name, Feldschlößchen. A travelling brewer from Braunschweig took the name to Switzerland and founded the Feldschlösschen brewery in Rheinfelden in 1876.

Since 1982, the Gerstäcker Museum has been housed in the former guard and kitchen house.

Schloss Richmond

Dankwarderode Castle (German: Burg Dankwarderode) on the Burgplatz ("castle square") in Braunschweig (Brunswick) is a Saxon lowland castle. It was the residence of the Brunswick dukes for centuries and, today, is part of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum.

Dankwarderode Castle was built between c. 1160 and 1175 as the Pfalz of Duke Henry the Lion on an island in the river Oker. Next to the castle, construction of Brunswick Cathedral began in 1173. The castle lost its military significance as a defensive structure early, when it became surrounded completely by the growing city.

During the 15th century, the dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel moved their Residenz out of the city and to the nearby town of Wolfenbüttel. In 1616 the palas was remodelled in the renaissance style, while the rest of the castle was demolished or left to decay. During the 19th century, the castle keep served as a barrack, plans to demolish it completely were stopped by public protests in 1873. The present structure was rebuilt in 1887 by Ludwig Winter, based on archaeological investigations. Today the ground floor of Dankwarderode Castle houses the permanent collection of medieval objects of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum.



Dankwarderode Castle

Brunswick Palace (German: Braunschweiger Schloss or Braunschweiger Residenzschloss) on the Bohlweg in the centre of the city of Brunswick (German: Braunschweig), was the residence of the Brunswick dukes from 1753 to 8 November 1918.

Work on the first building was begun in 1718 under the direction of Hermann Korb. After this building burned down in 1830, a second palace was built by Carl Theodor Ottmer, being completed in 1841. This was completely demolished in 1960 at the direction of Brunswick's city council due to the heavy damage it had suffered in air raids during the Second World War. The Palace Park (Schlosspark) was laid out on the resulting waste ground. This was completely removed in the spring of 2005 - following another resolution of the city council in 2004 - in order to erect a large shopping centre, the so-called Schloss-Arkaden (Palace Arcades), by spring 2007 on the land that had been cleared. Its western facade was to consist of a faithful reconstruction of the facade of Ottmer's palace. The rebuilt palace was opened to the public on 6 May 2007.

Brunswick Palace

Marienburg Castle (Burg Marienburg) is a well-preserved Romanesque castle in Hildesheim, a city in Lower Saxony, Germany.

Hildesheim was founded as the seat of the Bishopric of Hildesheim in 815. The settlement around the cathedral of Hildesheim was ruled by the clergy for four centuries and it quickly developed into a town which was awarded market rights by King Otto III in 983. The town grew further and obtained city rights in 1249, developing into a very wealthy merchant city. At the end of the 13th century, Hildesheim had about 5,000 inhabitants and was one of the biggest and richest cities in the North of Germany. The citizens gained more and more self-confidence and did not want to be governed by the bishop any longer. As the bishop did not want to reside in the rebellious and dangerous city any longer, he ordered Steuerwald Castle in the North of the city to be built as a new residence. When the castle was completed in 1313, he left Hildesheim. But just one castle proved insufficient to intimidate and to control the citizens. Bishop Henry III, his successor (1331–1363) who also resided in Steuerwald Castle, ordered another castle to be built in the South of Hildesheim, hoping to increase his power by controlling the city from two directions.

According to the orders given by Henry III, Marienburg Castle was built in 1346–1349 on the river Innerste in the South of Hildesheim, about 6 kilometres from the city The castle was built with three aisles, a high bergfried and very thick walls (2 metres) in a strategically advantageous location on the trade route linking Hildesheim to Goslar, another important merchant city. Marienburg Castle was surrounded by two moats. In addition, a part of the castle was protected by the river. In the Thirty Years' War, Marienburg Castle was conquered in 1623, but only the upper floors of the Southern and Eastern aisles suffered some damage. They were rebuilt in half-timbered style in 1663. After the Thirty Years' War, Marienburg Castle was only used for residential purposes and lost its strategic importance. The castle was remodelled several times. During the secularization, the Catholic Church lost the castle which was transformed into a government-owned domain.

The small village of Marienburg developed around the castle on the river Innerste. At the beginning of the 20th century it had 195 inhabitants, most of whom were working in the domain. In 1974, the village of Marienburg became a part of the city of Hildesheim.

During World War II, Marienburg Castle remained undamaged. From 1945 to 1981, some of the buildings served as a canning factory. Vegetables were grown on the fields surrounding the castle, and the two medieval moats were levelled as the space was needed for the cultivation. From 1949 to 1991, the deep vaulted cellar of the castle was used as an ice-cream factory. Since 1993, the castle has been used by the University of Hildesheim. In 2005, the City of Hildesheim bought Marienburg Castle for €12.1 million.

Over the centuries, Marienburg Castle has been remodelled and enlarged several times, but the oldest parts dating from the High Middle Ages are well-preserved. Some buildings were added in the 15th, 17th and 18th century. One of the barns was transformed into a lecture hall.

The castle keep, reaching a height of 31 metres, has an almost quadrate basis measuring 8.55 x 8.75 metres, firing slits and a tent roof.

The Romanesque palas is comparatively large, reaching a height of 29.5 metres. Its basis measures 21.06 x 12.65 metres and the walls are extraordinarily thick, reaching a thickness of up to 2.35 metres. Inside the building, which has four floors, there is a great hall on the third floor reaching a height of 5 metres. On the fourth floor, there is a bay window with a medieval toilet (sic). The palace has small romanesque windows and gothic lancet windows as well. As the building was used as a grain store for several centuries, it has hardly been remodelled.

The representative Tenant's House was built in the 18th century in Baroque style.

As Marienburg Castle is used by the University of Hildesheim, only a part of the castle is open to the public. Some buildings are just being renovated. There is a footpath around the castle with a scenic view giving a good impression of the whole complex. Sometimes special exhibitions are held in the castle.