Altenstein Palace

Schloss Altenstein is a Schloss or palace upon a rocky hill on the south-western slope of the Thuringian Forest, not far from Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany. It was the summer residence of the Dukes of Saxe-Meiningen, and is surrounded by 160 hectares (1.6 square kilometres) of English landscape garden, which contain, among other objects of interest, an underground cavern, 300 metres long, through which flows a large and rapid stream.GeographyAltenstein is a part of the municipality of Bad Liebenstein in the Wartburgkreis near Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany. It sits on a platform with a height of around 460 metres above sea level, part of the dolomite hills at the western edge of the Thuringian Forest. It is surrounded by 160 hectares of park, which includes several pinnacles of Zechstein rock.HistoryPrevious structuresA fortified structure, possibly initially a pre-Christian holy site, may have been roughly in the same location as the current house by the 6th century. The structure at this original site was later referred to as Alter Steyn. Saint Boniface, the apostle of the Germans, reportedly lived and preached at Altenstein in 724 and built a chapel on the so-called Bonifatiusfelsen. A new castle (Neuenburg) was later built at this site by the Kloster Fulda. In 1116, a knight “Dudo von Steyn” (later known as von Frankenstein) was mentioned as holding a castle here. Neuenburg itself was first mentioned in an extant document in 1150. In 1225, the older castle was first referred to as de antique lapide (“Old Stone”).