Altes Schloss (Old palace)

From castle to palace

» An important cultural heritage

The Old Palace was first mentioned as a castle in a treaty between Schenk Friedrich von Limpurg and the town of Hall in 1399. This treaty set forth rules for the rafting of timber on the River Kocher to the saltmakers in the town of Hall. The treaty and the seal of the town of Gaildorf, which came into being 35 years later and to this day still depicts a raft, document how important the rafting of timber was for Gaildorf in those days.

In 1700 Juliane Dorothea von Limpurg, the daughter of the Schenken couple Wilhelm Heinrich and Elisabeth Dorothea, married Count Johann Wilhelm von Wurmbrand from Styria in Austria. The grand hall in the Old Palace was named after Count Johann Wilhelm von Wurmbrand. The construction of the renaissance-style oak ceiling was built under an older stucco ceiling, which is partly preserved today. The special feature of this ceiling is that it is self-supporting, whereby it represents an exceptional feat of structural engineering. The wedding of Juliane Dorothea and Count Johann Wilhelm von Wurmbrand took place in the Wurmbrand Hall. She would later inherit a considerable part of the castle.

» Chequered History

The counts of Pückler-Limpurg built a stately palace for themselves in Gaildorf in 1778. This palace, so called the "New Palace", was first destroyed in 1868 during a town fire and, after having been rebuilt, was finally destroyed together with the town church by German shelling at the end of the war in 1945.
During the post-war years, the Old Palace, which survived the war intact, accommodated refugees and bombed-out families from Gaildorf and surroundings. In the mid-1950s a textile firm occupied the Wurmbrand hall. In the early 1970s, renovation work began on the Old Palace and is still in progress today. The premises are now used as club rooms, exhibition rooms and apartments. The Old Palace is an integral part of town life.