Skokloster Castle

Another post about an extraordinary Swedish castle. A nice excursion destination if you are interested in history.

Skokloster Castle is located south of Uppsala, by Lake Mälaren. It is the largest private palace that has been built in Sweden.

Stylistically, it is done in baroque and a characteristic of the castle is its octagonal tower. Another distinctive feature is the ambitious stucco ceilings, well suited to provide neck restraints and clearly visible in the interior photos.

The castle was built on behalf of Carl Gustaf Wrangel, one of Sweden’s foremost military men of all time. Construction work began in 1654 and stopped at Wrangel’s death in 1676. It was not fully completed at Wrangel’s death; the ball and banquet hall remains unfinished.

Several architects were involved in the design of the castle and the castle garden, but a German architect named Caspar Vogel was probably primarily responsible.

Carl Gustaf Wrangel and his wife were great collectors of art, crafts, weapons and books and their extensive collections remain in the castle. A significant part of the collections consists of spoils of war. The weapon collection is one of Europe’s largest.

It’s an impressive castle both exterior and interior, but the castle speaks more of big money than great taste, in my opinion.

Carl Gustaf Wrangel’s chosen language was "It is not mortal that I desire" – "It is not the impermanent I seek." and he succeeded well in that ambition. Now he even lives on here in cyberspace.

Image 1: Skokloster castle. Picture 2: Carl Gustaf Wrangel. Pictures 3 – 9: Interiors, with the armory in the last two pictures.