Castle

Das Schloss

Am herrschaftlichen Schloss erkennt man den Spät-Barocken Baustil. Im Jahre 1620 stand das Schloss als dreiflügeliges barockes Gebäude. Nach 1807 wurde es von seinem damaligen Besitzer von Pfister völlig umgebaut. Eine wesentliche Baumaßnahme erlebte das Schloss 1880 durch den Grafen von Zech-Burkersroda als die Flügel entfernt wurden, ein großer Flügel an der Nordseite angebaut wurde und schöne Sandsteingauben und ein Giebel als Verzierung gebaut wurden. In den folgenden Jahren wurde mehrmals daran gebaut und so erhielt es sein heutiges Aussehen.

Bild: Altes Schloss um 1800. Wandmalerei im Schloss zu Börln - wird noch gesucht! (Neue Sächsische Kirchengalerie, 1914)

Es konnte nachgewiesen werden, dass dieses Schloss auf den Resten einer frühdeutschen Wasserburganlage errichtet wurde. Es war von einem Wallgraben umgeben. Das Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte hat dieses Bodendenkmal unter Schutz gestellt aber die Hälfte wurde kanalisiert und gefüllt.

Die Schlossgeschichte endete natürlich nicht mit der Enteignung der letzten Besitzer im Jahre 1945. Das Rittergut ging zunächst in die Verwaltung der Sowjetischen Armee über.

Im Schloss wurde vorübergehend eine Station für abhanden gekommene Kinder eingerichtet. Unter ihnen waren 20, die keinen Namen angeben konnten. Nachdem diese Kinder ihren Angehörigen zugeführt werden konnten, ist das Kinderheim im Sommer 1946 wieder aufgelöst worden.

Das Schloss diente Ende der 40-iger und Anfang der 50-iger Jahre aber noch anderen Zwecken. So wurden Unterrichts-und Werkräume eingerichtet und zusätzlicher Schulbetrieb aufgenommen. Über längere Zeit waren Schule und Altenheim gleichzeitig Nutzer des Schlosses.

Parallel zum Schulbetrieb fanden dreißig alte und hilfsbedürftige Menschen Aufnahme im Schloss. Es war die Geburtsstunde des Alters- und Pflegeheimes. Die Aufnahmekapazität war unterschiedlich, 1972 wohnten 70 und 1979/80 sogar 130 Senioren in diesem Hause.

Nach der friedlichen Revolution im Jahre 1989 fanden 85 Menschen hier ihr zu Hause. Ende 2002 zogen die Bewohner und Pflegeschwestern in ein neues Gebäude in Dahlen.

Schon im Jahr 2000 wurde entschieden, dass Schloss Börln nicht mehr als Altenheim genutzt werden sollte. Die Behörden in Torgau suchten nach einem Käufer.

Am 22. Juli 2003 wurde Schloss Börln an einen privaten Investor, Herr Roderick Hinkel, verkauft, der in Sachsen seine Wurzeln hat. Das Schloss wird über die nächsten Jahren restauriert und als Familiensitz und für Kunst und Kultur benutzt.

Moated Electoral Hunting Castle

Former baroque hunting castle built in 1617-20 as a three-sided building (marked as "Schlos." on the map of 1617). In 1620 the castle was a three-sided baroque building. After 1807 is was altered by the then owner Baron von Pfister. In about 1880 the von Zech-Burkersroda family modernised the castle by demolishing the two wings on the east side and building one large wing as a replacement on the north side and adding a decorative sandstone gable and sandstone windows (removed on the west side in the 1930s). In the following years the building underwent various changes, resulting in its current form.

The castle was built on the remains of an early German moated fort and was surrounded by a moat. The Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte placed this earthwork monument under the protection of the Monuments Act but half of it was later canalised and filled in.

The castle's history did not end with the expropriation in 1945. The Manor was transferred into the administration of the Soviet Army. The castle was temprarily used as a station for displaced children of which 20 were not able to state their names. After these children were repatriated to their families, the childrens' home was closed in the summer of 1946. At the end of the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s the ground floor of the castle was used as schoolrooms and for a long time the school co-existed with the retirement and nursing home with some thirty aged and needy patients cared for in the building. It was the birth hour of the retirement and nursing home. The capacity differed over the years, in 1972 there were 70 residents and in 1979/80 there were 130 senior citizens in the building. After the Peaceful Revolution of 1989 there were 85 residents. At the end of 2002 the residents and nurses moved to a new building in Dahlen.

After 1945 all light fittings, ceramic ovens and fireplaces and other historic features were removed. There is only one sandstone fireplace remaining in the entrance hall. Two historic pairs of solid oak doors and an oak built-in bookcase were hacked out and removed in 1995 by the AWO operator of the retirement home "Feierabend" and the doorways were closed with gypsum board. After the so-called Peaceful Revolution in 1989, the still beautiful castle experienced more damage than ever before, more damage than was ever caused by Hussites, Swedes, Russians and Communists put together. Although most of the valuable items were removed by the state in 1945, there will still some pieces of furniture in the castle until the retirement home moved to its new premises in 2002.

These were taken simply by senior staff of the AWO operating company rather than being handed over as the law requires to the heirs of Count and Countess von Zech-Burkersroda. The governor of the Province of Torgau-Oschatz stated in writing that he had no interest in reclaiming these to hand back to the heirs so they remain in the private possession of those who took them. As early as 2000 it was decided to build a new retirement and nursing home in Dahlen. In 2002 the authorities in Torgau started searching for a new owner for Schloss Börln. On 22th July 2003 it was sold to Roderick Hinkel.

The entrance with sandstone elements. The original lanterns disappeared in the 1990s. A metal weather protection plate over the gable was removed after 1945.

The entrance hall with the asymmetrical staircase, since 2004 free of the partitioning walls which had hidden it since about 1880. The ceiling is said to have been extraordinarily beautiful but there are no photos available and nobody can remember exactly what the paintings looked like.

The only remaining fireplace, carved in sandstone, probably about 1880, located in the entrance hall. Its twin on the north side of the room is missing but a copy could be made to restore the room to its original appearance.

Large pine wood wardrobe painted with "ZB" (Zech-Burkersroda) in the centre, the only piece of the original furniture left that the state and later the home employees could not carry off as it was too large.

Wilhelminian oak doors on the first floor - unfortunately two pairs in the middle salon in which wall and ceiling paintings dating from 1620 were found, were hacked out in 1995 and the doorways closed with plasterboard. The retirement home operator AWO prefers not to disclose where they ended up.

Oak winding staircase from the first floor to the mansard, about 1880