Schwerinsburg

Schwerin castle

The Schwerin Castle is the largest of the three castles of Windhoek and is located on a ridge in the Windhoek district luxury hill.

Their history begins in 1890, when left in its current location Curt von François build safety reasons a signal tower to connect Windhoek and Klein-Windhoek. The signal tower consisted only of adobe walled up with a thatched roof and stone hills with loopholes, and so it was not surprising that he fell in 1894 after the end of the Witbooi war.

Rudolf Moeller opened a short time later in the ruins of a beer hall and restaurant.

In the 1890s, he left his restaurant from a native of Germany architect Wilhelm Sander converted to a " castle ruins ". The old stone walls were plastered with clay and so integrated into the ruins. In addition, a high round zinnenbekrönter tower was built. Inside the restaurant arches were used and painted the walls at the Windhoek painter Erich Mayer with murals and humorous sense sayings. The ruined castle restaurant was christened " Sperlingslust ".

But that should not take long remain so. 1904/1905, during the Herero uprising, the tower restaurant " Sperlingslust " for a short time was used again as a guard. However, due to lack of use, it was sold again to a private person, which in turn opened a restaurant there. These flourished not long, and so eventually did the whole estate in 1913 in the possession of Hans Bogislav Graf von Schwerin. This commissioned in the same year, impressed by the views of the vast valley, these convert the former star architect Wilhelm Sander, the builder of the " Sperlingslust " in a romantic castle.

A special feature of the castle is a 104 m deep borehole in the courtyard, which was drilled in the bottom of the Count to come there on the water. In memory of the family castle built in 1721 Schwerin castle in Pomerania, where he grew up, he named the castle also like that. Not far from the " Schwerin castle " built architect Sander in 1914 at a slightly lower hill for himself another castle-like building. But this he sold two years later (1916 ) also to Count Schwerin, who then named this plant after the family of his wife Heinitzburg.

Currently, the Schwerin castle in private hands, but until the beginning of 2013 residence of the Italian Ambassador in Namibia.