Blankenhain
About Blankenhain
A small town built around a castle that was never a princely residence — which is exactly why it is interesting. Eight documented lords held it in turn, it burned and was rebuilt in 1690, and the shape it took then is the shape it still has three hundred years later.
Sights in Blankenhain
- Schloss BlankenhainCastle
Blankenhain, Weimarer Land
The castle stands on the plateau in the middle of the town and is its cultural centre.
Blankenhain in depth
A castle on a seventh-century site
The castle goes back to a Frankish round fort of the seventh century, and the building standing today took its form after a fire at the end of the seventeenth. It is a closed, irregular oval. The town's own description is unusually candid about why it looks as it does: it was never a princely residence, so it has no splendid architecture — and that is the reason a fortified plan survives here instead of a baroque façade.
Eight lords in turn, 1256–1794
A deed of 1256 has Ludwig von Blankenhain holding the place and its castle; his line died out in 1416 with Heinrich von Blankenhain. The counts of Gleichen inherited and held it until 1631 — under Count Karl, around 1480, came a larger rebuilding of which an oriel above the entrance survives. Then the counts of Hatzfeld, from 1631 to 1794, whom the town names as the most formative: they rebuilt the castle after several fires in 1690, and that rebuilding has lasted three hundred years.
Passed from hand to hand, 1794 to 1918
The last century of lordship reads like a summary of German history: Kurmainz from 1794, Prussia from 1802, and from 1815 the grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, which held it until 1918. A central building went up between 1861 and 1880. Since 1920 the castle has belonged to the town, and it serves as its cultural and social centre with rooms for events.
The town around it
Blankenhain's first mention as a town dates to 1252, and it counts a history of well over 750 years. What it offers now is the everyday kind: a woodland leisure pool, a network of walking and cycling routes through the country south-west of Weimar, and the Golfresort Weimarer Land.
Questions visitors ask
- What is Blankenhain known for?
- Blankenhain is known for its castle, which was never a princely residence — eight documented lords held it in turn, it burned and was rebuilt from 1690, and the shape it took then is the shape it still has today.
- Who held Blankenhain Castle?
- A deed of 1256 has Ludwig von Blankenhain holding it; his line died out in 1416. The counts of Gleichen held it until 1631, then the counts of Hatzfeld until 1794 — the town names them as the most formative, since they rebuilt the castle after fires in 1690. Kurmainz, Prussia and finally the grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach followed, which held it until 1918.
- How old is Blankenhain?
- Blankenhain's first mention as a town dates to 1252, and the castle goes back to a Frankish round fort of the seventh century.
- Can you visit Blankenhain Castle?
- The castle has belonged to the town since 1920 and serves as its cultural and social centre, with rooms for events.
Quick Information
Southwest
Highlights & Attractions
Historical Significance
Eight successive lordships from the thirteenth century to 1918, ending with the grand duke of Weimar — and a castle that survives because nobody grand ever wanted to modernise it.
Dining Options
Restaurant “Zum güldenen Zopf”
Classic Thuringian, largely from the surrounding country
Spa & GolfResort Weimarer Land – GolfHütte
Hearty resort cooking
Spa & GolfResort Weimarer Land – Restaurant Augusta
Half-board dining, five-course dinner menu
Spa & GolfResort Weimarer Land – Restaurant Masters
Mediterranean and French, from regional produce — Michelin-starred
In the history of Blankenhain
Historical periods
The castle's line begins with a deed of 1256 and the town's first mention in 1252, the same centuries in which Weimar was becoming a town.
For six centuries Weimar is a small Thuringian town with a castle, a market and a church, overshadowed by its bigger neighbours. What the Middle Ages leave here is not a monument but a ground plan — and, after the town burns in 1424, the two buildings everything later happens around.
The grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach held the castle from 1815 until 1918 — Blankenhain spent the whole of Weimar's Silver Age as Weimar property.
Goethe died in 1832, and Weimar had to work out what a town does after its golden age. It decided to keep going, and the answer took eighty-six years — the era the Klassik Stiftung Weimar calls the Silver Age. Music replaced literature as the thing Weimar was for, two royal patrons paid for it, and the schools they founded outlived the monarchy that funded them.
Stay and eat nearby
Where to eat
Rudolstädter Straße 2, Blankenhain
The house stands in the town, on the Rudolstädter Straße, and its history is the town's — it burned with it in 1742.
Lindenallee 1, Blankenhain
Out on the resort's course rather than in the town.
Lindenallee 1, Blankenhain
One of the restaurants of the resort outside the town.
Lindenallee 1, Blankenhain
In the resort outside the town, on the Lindenallee.
Interesting reads
Historical figures
1749–1832 • writer • statesman • naturalist
1759–1805 • writer • poet • historian
1739–1807 • duchess • regent • patron • composer
1883–1969 • architect • founder and director of the Bauhaus • teacher
Historic sites
Frauenplan 1, 99423 Weimar
Platz der Demokratie 1, 99423 Weimar
Stéphane-Hessel-Platz 1, 99423 Weimar
Buchenwald, 99427 Weimar