Reinhardsbrunn

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Reinhardsbrunn in Friedrichroda near Gotha, in Thuringia in Germany, is the site of a formerly prominent Benedictine abbey extant between 1085 and 1525, and, from 1827, of a royal castle and park of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family.

[edit] Monastery

Reinhardsbrunn Abbey (in German Kloster Reinhardsbrunn) was a house of the Benedictine Order founded in 1085 by Count Ludwig the Jumper of Thuringia, against the background of the Investiture Controversy and the Hirsau Reforms, with which it was closely connected. The monastery stood under Papal protection from 1093.

It was also of significance as the family monastery of the Counts of Thuringia.

The monastery was looted and sacked in 1525 in the Peasants' War. The monks took refuge in Gotha and the site was sold to the Electors of Saxony, who allowed the buildings to fall into ruin.

[edit] Castle and park

In 1827 Duke Ernst I of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who had inherited the site, built a country house here - Schloss Reinhardsbrunn - in the English style, surrounded by a pleasure garden (Queen Victoria and Prince Albert the Prince Consort first met here). The royal family kept possession until World War II, when, after some time in the hands of the state, the house and estate was used for a short time by Russian forces as a military hospital and then for various functions by the government of the DDR, who opened it as a showpiece hotel in 1961. After 1991 the castle with its facilities and park passed into private ownership, only to be closed in 2001. Its future seems still to be uncertain.