HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

“Hammerherrenschloss Theuern”, the stately home belonging to the owner of the hammer mill, is now the centrepiece of the “Bergbau- und Industriemuseum Ostbayern” (mining and industry museum of East Bavaria). The cornerstone for this late baroque maanor was laid on 25 August 1780. The “Jägerhaus” (hunting lodge), which had already been built by Johann Georg Portner in 1682, was integrated into the new building.

The Electoral master builder Wolfgang Diller from Amberg was recruited to build the manor house. Several farm buildings (cattle stalls and barns) had already been built back in the 1770s, so that the complex consisted of four wings around an enclosed courtyard. Inside the castle, next to the staircase with richly carved railings, the original interior decoration has been preserved in a “salon” on the first floor boasting carved rococo doors. The late baroque construction and rococo décor reveal a style that was actually no longer modern at the time. In 1780 – nine years before the French Revolution –, stately homes in other places were more wont to be modelled in the style of Classical architecture.