Tourist Highlights
Tourist Sights
Wilhelmsthal Palace Park
A Magnificent Piece of Rococo
Each year the palace and park form the backdrop for the official opening of the “North Hessian Cultural Summer“, a series of staged events which are launched with a concert and picnic in the park.
Palace
The palace building is one of the region’s most important monuments and one of the most outstanding examples of the rococo period still in existence. The best-known artists of the 18th century were involved in its construction.
The design, based on "the latest French taste" for a "maison de plaisance" came from François de Cuvilliés the Elder, an architect attached to the Bavarian court. The sumptuous interior containing carved wooden wainscoting, stucco work and numerous paintings of the highest quality were created by Johann August Nahl, a sculptor who had previously worked in Berlin and Potsdam for Frederick the Great as well as Johann Michael Brühl who did stucco work for the court and Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Elder, a painter at the court in Kassel.
Rococo Park
Some parts still remain from the mid-18th-century rococo park which was never quite completed: the southern axis with the canal and grotto, a masterpiece of royal park landscape artistry in the 18th century, and the former duck pond. From the central axis, which is partially bordered by lime trees, traces of the original water basin which was intended to supply cascading waterfalls can still be seen in the ground.
Palace Park
However, the current design of the garden is due to the fact that it was redesigned as a landscape garden by Landgrave Wilhelm IX’s court gardener Karl Hentze, based on plans by Daniel August Schwarzkopf, between 1796 and 1806. At the same time the watchtower was constructed as an artificial ruin on a higher slope towering above the trees based on draft plans drawn up by the famous Kassel architect Simon Louis Du Ry.
The tower focuses visitors’ attention on a special feature of the Wilhelmsthal grounds: contrary to customary practice at the time the palace is situated in the lowest part of the grounds, almost hidden deep in the valley. The main axis rises on both sides, defining the centre of the park on the east and constituting an avenue leading to the adjoining zoological gardens on the west, which provided hunting grounds for the court. This scenery is most effective when viewed from the festive rooms on the first floor.
Information
Tourist Information Centre in the Town Hall
Obere Königsstraße 8
Phone:+49(0)561/707707
Fax:+49(0)561/7077169
Opening Times:
Monday to Friday
9am to 6pm
Saturdays
9am to 2pm
Tourist & Health Spa Information
im Bahnhof Wilhelmshöhe (Intercity Railway Station)
Phone:+49(0)561/34054 Fax:+49(0)561/315216
Opening Times:
Monday to Friday
9am to 6pm
Saturdays
9am to 1pm