Gut Wensin, Manor house with park in Wensin, Germany.
Gut Wensin is an estate on the Wardersee in eastern Schleswig-Holstein. Its two-storey Renaissance manor house was built from 1635 to 1642 under Joachim von Brockdorff, joining two parallel houses whose side facades form stepped gables; the sandstone portal and stucco ceilings date from an 18th-century Rococo remodelling. The largest building is the Old Granary in round-arch style, and a 1727 cavalier house stands by the manor.
Wensin began as a Wendish settlement and became the seat of the knights von Wensin, who built a fortified double house at Garbek a few kilometres north. In 1421 Nicolaus von Buchwaldt bought the estate; his line held it until Hans von Buchwaldt, who had only daughters, sold it in 1635 to Joachim von Brockdorff after a major fire destroyed the water castle and farm in 1625. Brockdorff moved the farm south to the lake shore and had the present manor house built between 1635 and 1642.
The name Wensin comes from a Wendish settlement; a German knightly family that arrived with the Counts of Schauenburg took the place name as its own. The estate's garden, laid out as a closed Renaissance hortus conclusus, was redesigned in Baroque style after 1763 by the Danish conference councillor Wulf Hinrich von Thienen, who added the cross-shaped lime avenues dividing it into four compartments. The Old Granary now serves food and drink.
The manor house is privately owned and lived in, so it cannot be visited; the historic estate garden opens during events such as Tag des offenen Denkmals, and guided tours for groups are available on request. The Alte Speicher now serves food and drink, while much of the surrounding land is taken up by a golf course.
The manor house is one of the last major Renaissance works in Schleswig-Holstein, built 1635–1642 for Joachim von Brockdorff. Its plan follows the old double-house form of the region's water castles: two parallel houses joined along their long sides, with stepped gables on the side facades and the show facade facing the courtyard.
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