Iburg Castle

Bad Iburg, Germany, Germany

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Iburg Castle, also known as Schloss Iburg, is a historic hilltop castle and former Benedictine abbey in the spa town of Bad Iburg in Lower Saxony, Germany.

It began as a fortification in the early Middle Ages and by around 1100 had become the seat of the prince‑bishops of Osnabrück, who expanded it into a grand residence and monastic complex centered on the abbey of St. Clemens.

The castle was repeatedly altered over the centuries, especially after the Thirty Years’ War, and took on its present ensemble character in the 15th and 17th centuries, with a remarkable 17th‑century Knights’ Hall whose painted ceiling is one of the last surviving examples of perspective‑painted mock architecture north of the Alps.

Iburg is also famous as the birthplace of Sophie Charlotte of Hanover, the first queen of Prussia and grandmother of Frederick the Great, and today the complex functions as a museum and cultural site open to visitors, with guided tours through princely rooms, courtyards, and two churches, while its silhouette continues to define the townscape of Bad Iburg.