Oberschloss Bonfeld, Baroque château in Bonfeld district, Bad Rappenau, Germany.
Oberschloss Bonfeld is a Baroque château built from 1748 for the Freiherren von Gemmingen on the site of a medieval castle in Bonfeld, now part of Bad Rappenau. Its name refers to its position above the Altes Schloss of 1564–1568. The two-storey building has a mansard roof and corner pilasters.
Bonfeld belonged to the Lords of Gemmingen from 1476. In 1748 Reinhard, Philipp and Karl Reinhard von Gemmingen began the new schloss on the site of a medieval castle, using plans by Anton Schrotz of Emmendingen; the shell was topped out on 6 November 1749. A 1776 inheritance division gave the Oberschloss to Karl Friedrich Reinhard von Gemmingen, who had the Alte Schloss converted into a Meierei and the whole area walled.
The name Oberschloss (Upper Palace) comes from its position above the Altes Schloss, the 16th-century water castle to its south. From 1778 the gardener Johann Michael Trips laid out the grounds for Karl Friedrich Reinhard von Gemmingen, planting 54 grafted apple trees from Schweinfurt and Neubronn in the first year, later adding pears, French rose bushes and cherry trees.
The château stands in Bonfeld, a district of Bad Rappenau in the Heilbronn district; the site is privately used and has no public interior access, so it is seen from the outside. The surrounding area was walled off after 1776, when Karl Friedrich Reinhard von Gemmingen converted the neighbouring Altes Schloss into a Meierei. The former nursery grounds laid out from 1778 by gardener Johann Michael Trips are not open as a park.
The 1746 plans by Georg Philipp Wenger were dropped as too costly; the executed design came from Anton Schrotz of Emmendingen, who estimated 8,621 guilders, a sum that proved too low. Peasants from Bonfeld dug the cellar and demolished the old castle as forced labour, and records note thefts of building material from the site.
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