Very British

As you all surely know from history lessons, the ancestors of today’s Saxons moved to the British Isles in the 5th century and founded the Anglo-Saxon culture there. Perhaps that is the reason why we still find many British peculiarities great today. It was probably the same for Count Otto Carl Friedrich von Schönburg-Waldenburg. He had travelled through England in his youth and apparently found great pleasure in English garden culture. Shortly after he became the ruler of Waldenburg in 1779, he began to build a summer residence with an English garden nearby.

At the flowering time of the garden in the 19th century there were over 50 buildings, monuments and sculptures there, which were related to each other by axes of vision. Even an artificial grotto and a game reserve were created.

Fortunately, some buildings have survived till today and have been restored in recent years. Something very special is the imaginary connection between the bathhouse and the mausoleum. The bathhouse, built in 1790, the Count dedicated it to his wife Henriette by means of a short inscription above the portal „HENRICAE CONJVGI OPTIMAE DAT DONAT DEDICAT OTTO“, translated „Henriette, the best wife, gives, bestows and dedicates, Otto“.

Henriette, on the other hand, had a representative mausoleum built for her beloved husband, who had died in 1800, at the southern end of the park and in direct line of sight to the bathhouse. It bears the inscription „Otto the Unforgettable, Henriette.” The two must have loved each other very much – what a romantic story.

Your very ferocious Grizzly