Schloss Kärlich

Kärlich palace
Native names
  • Jagdschloss Kärlich (German)
  • Kurfürstliches Schloss zu Kärlich (German)
Schloss Kärlich on a painting by Gottfried Bernhard Manskich in Bürresheim Castle (around 1760)
LocationKoblenz
Builtc. 1344
Built forKarl Kaspar von der Leyen
Rebuilt
  • 1480
  • Between 1654 and 1660
Architectural style(s)Renaissance style

The Kärlich palace (German: Jagdschloss Kärlich or German: Kurfürstliches Schloss zu Kärlich) is a former electoral hunting lodge in Kärlich near Koblenz, Germany. It was situated on the northern side of the village. It served as a summer retreat and hunting lodge for the Prince-Electors and Archbishops of Trier.

On the site of a destroyed medieval castle, Prince-Elector Karl Kaspar von der Leyen (1618–1676) constructed a renaissance style moated castle between 1654 and 1660. At the end of the 18th century, Prince-Elector Clemens Wenceslaus of Saxony (1739–1812) created a large English landscape garden at Kärlich including various neoclassical buildings.

During the French Revolutionary Wars, the Prince-Elector had to flee his electorate. Thereafter, French revolutionary troops looted and demolished the hunting lodge.

There is not much left of the castle today, except for various columns and a model of the castle, which can be admired in the local museum of the Mülheim-Kärlich municipality. Also, nothing remembers anymore of the English landscape, which was one of the first in Germany.