Tiefurt Castle and Park in Weimar

Muses’ venue of the Weimar court society

The Tiefurt Castle Park is located four kilometers east of Weimar and covers an area of 21 hectares on both sides of the Ilm River. Gently sloping meadows with beautiful groups of trees extend from the small castle next to the Kammergut (crown land) to the river bank. Beyond rises a steep slope densely overgrown with trees. Numerous monuments and park architecture invite you to explore.

In Tiefurt Park, garden art, country life, and literature entered into a particularly intimate union. The park was created in its present extent in several stages of development.

From 1775 onwards, Prince Friedrich Ferdinand Constantin, the younger brother of the ruling Duke Carl August of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, designed an English landscape park together with his educator Karl Ludwig von Knebel. Meandering paths, the first park architectures, seating areas, and various plantings were created. After Constantin's departure from Weimar in 1781, Duchess Anna Amalia moved her summer residence to Tiefurt and continued the park design step by step. In the process, the Leopold Monument, the Greek cenotaph for Constantin, who died at an early age, the Mozart Monument and the Herder Stone as well as the Temple of the Muses and the Tea House were created.

During this time, Tiefurt advanced to become a muses' venue for Weimar court society and its guests. A social life developed that was characterized by performances, literary evenings and even its own small journal, the "Journal von Tiefurt". With the looting of the castle by French troops in 1806 and the death of Anna Amalia in 1807, it became quiet in Tiefurt.

It was not until the Weimar court gardener Eduard Petzold extensively renovated and redesigned the park between 1846 and 1850 that Tiefurt did regain its original significance. To this day, the park has preserved its original coherence and character as an early landscape park, which bears both sensitive and post-classical characteristics. Since 1998, Tiefurt Castle and Park have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.