The Castle Hammerstein looks back on more than 400 years of history. In 1673 it was acquired by Christoph Freiherr von Hammerstein-Gesmold and it has remained in the possession of his descendants to this day.
Today the castle can be rented for celebrations, events or filming. Groups (from around 15 people) can also independently make an appointment for a one-hour guided tour.
Hammerstein Castle is characterized in particular by the late Gothic architectural impression of the exterior in connection with the column-decorated interior portals and the chimneys inside the castle decorated with antique and northern European motifs and ornaments. Hammerstein Castle is an expression of a conscious combination of Gothic and antique reception with the humanistic world view of the early modern period, which is unique in the County of Schaumburg. The Billungian heritage of Apelern, mentioned as early as 1055, had a checkered ownership history before the estate passed into the possession of Baron Jobst von Münchhausen around 1550 as a fief of the Counts of Holstein-Schaumburg. After this Münchhausen line had died out (another one still owns the neighboring Münchhausen moated castle in Apelern to this day), the Chancellor Anton Wietersheim from Schuetzburg acquired the property in Apelern on March 1, 1580, which had been converted into a free courtyard in 1556 by Count Otto IV of Holstein-Schaumburg, the the chancellor gradually enlarged in terms of area. The single-wing castle from 1590, which rises above a rectangular, elongated floor plan on the northern edge of the castle island in an east-west orientation, follows the type of a four-storey building with a gabled roof, which is accessed via a polygonal spiral staircase tower presented to the building. On June 30, 1673, the Royal Swedish Major General Friderich Christoph von Hammerstein-Gesmold acquired the manor and castle. Friderich Christoph came from the family of the Barons von Hammerstein, first mentioned in tournament books on November 5, 948, who today are the 12th generation to live in the castle. The ancestral home of the family was an imperial castle that was devastated by French troops in 1688 and has since been preserved only as a ruin. It sits enthroned on a rock above the Rhine opposite Andernach. Source: Wikipedia