Jagdschloss Hohengehren, Former hunting lodge in Esslingen, Germany
Jagdschloss Hohengehren was the central building of the former Hohengehren wildlife park in the Schurwald. The lodge was flanked by a kennel in the southwest and a garden in the northeast, with a courtyard at its rear and two ponds in front. The building itself was dismantled in 1839 and rebuilt in Altbach.
The first game enclosures in the Schurwald probably date to Duke Eberhard Ludwig of Württemberg (1677–1733); Duke Carl Eugen and King Friedrich I enlarged the park, which was enclosed by a two-metre wall with guard houses at its east and west entrances. When King Wilhelm I dissolved the park in 1839, the lodge was sold to the municipality of Altbach for 6,049 guilders, dismantled and rebuilt there, serving as its town hall until 2018.
The name Hohengehren survives in the surrounding wild park, whose two-metre wall was guarded at its east and west entrances by watchtowers; the eastern one, the Parkhaus, still stands by the forest edge on the road between Baltmannsweiler and Weinstadt-Baach and is privately owned as a dwelling.
The lodge no longer stands at its original site: in 1839 it was sold for 6,049 guilders, dismantled and rebuilt in Altbach, where it served as the town hall until 2018. The former park house on the road between Baltmannsweiler and Weinstadt-Baach survives as a private residence.
The two ponds in front of the former lodge and the Schlösslesbrunnen west of the old castle grounds still exist at the Hohengehren site, even though the building itself was moved to Altbach in 1839. The eastern guard house of the wildlife park, the Parkhaus, also survives and is privately owned.
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