Hallway: Architectural History and Brief Introduction to the Chronology @museum.de

Imagine you’re standing outside.

In the early centuries of the castle’s history, that’s exactly what you would have been doing. The Upper Ward extended to this spot, and the hallway you’re standing in now didn’t exist.

Behind you is the keep, and ahead of you is the kitchen; anyone wanting to go from one to the other had to cross the courtyard. Look up at the ceiling. Above the pale plaster, you can see the previous wall of the the Great Hall and the stables from the Renaissance period. In other words, the passage was only added when the palace was remodelled in 1771 and ‘72 – initially as an arcade, and finally as a solid stonework porch.

The current flooring of dressed stone also hints at the hallway’s unusual architectural history.

These days, there’s an illuminated timeline set into the floor, combining the main dates of the palace history with the history of the state of Saxony and with world events. The timeline starts in the present and extends back to the founding of the castle in the 13th century.

Please make your way along it. Think of it as a time machine as you leave the here and now and enter the past. The glass pillars along the wall tell of exciting times: the restoration in the years following German reunification, the gradual decline of the palace during the GDR period, but also the youth club established here; the building’s use as a district court and administrative centre, its remodelling into a hunting lodge under Elector Moritz – all the way back to the first documented lord of Radeberg, a knight called Ritter Thimo.

His seal, or rather that of his family, is on display in the final glass case. It shows the coat of arms of the von Radeberg family: a Norman shield with a wheel broken in three places. A modified version of this wheel is still part of Radeberg’s coat of arms today.