Wiligrad Castle: A park awakens from its slumber

A gravel path leads around Wiligrad Castle to a small forecourt with the most beautiful view: to the left, Lake Schwerin is blue, to the front you can see a gently sloping lawn with bald cypresses, plane trees and a trumpet tree. Behind it, the Schwerin cathedral tower peaks through the greenery. A dream of a castle park, also because Wiligrad Castle itself is such an eye-catcher: an impressive, two-winged neo-Renaissance building from the late 19th century, which is stylistically reminiscent of the Renaissance of the time of Duke Johann Albrecht I and stands out with its façade decorated with numerous terracotta elements.

However, during the GDR era, the castle and park suddenly disappeared from the maps for political reasons. The grounds were first used as a party school and then as a training center for the People's Police. And the public was not welcome there. Anyone strolling through the 19-hectare palace park today is therefore also walking through a piece of contemporary history. In the post-war period, clear-cutting, uncontrolled growth and the bunkers and residential buildings of the police school destroyed the landscape park. We then began its restoration in 2011," explains Dietmar Braune, Head of the Parks and Gardens Department of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern State Palace, Gardens and Art Collections. The terrain of the landscape park was remodeled and a lot of land was cleared, because after 40 years of uncontrolled growth, practically everything was overgrown," recalls Braune. „Basically, we have revived a park that no longer existed. That is something very nice indeed!

The „Elisabeth Spring“ was also reconstructed and the so-called „Emperor's Staircase“, which once led up from the landing stage on the bank, was uncovered. True to the original? „As far as possible, we worked from original plans and old photos. Where we couldn't find anything, we closed gaps," adds Braune. He is particularly pleased about the Braunschweig Löwen, a bronze sculpture sitting on a limestone plinth. „It is a replica. The original disappeared after 1945. It is thanks to a fortunate circumstance that the mold of an identical lion was still available in Ratzeburg, which we were then able to use again. Now the lamp is back where it belongs.