Faber-Castell Castle

About this place

A family castle about six kilometres south-west of central Nuremberg, in the neighbouring town of Stein, and every stone of it was paid for by the pencil. The story starts in seventeen sixty-one, when Kaspar Faber set up a small pencil workshop in Stein; in the nineteenth century Lothar von Faber turned pencil-making into a modern industry and launched what is generally counted the world's first branded pencil. There are two buildings here rather than one. The Old Castle was designed for Lothar von Faber by the architect Friedrich Buerklein and built between eighteen forty-three and eighteen forty-six in a neo-Renaissance manner. The much larger New Castle went up between nineteen hundred and three and nineteen hundred and six to plans by Theodor von Kramer, director of the Bavarian museum of applied arts, after Ottilie von Faber, the heiress of the line, married Count Alexander zu Castell-Ruedenhausen and the company became Faber-Castell. Inside it is a parade of the tastes of the period: rooms in a run of different historical styles, a grand staircase and stained glass. You can only see it on a guided tour booked in advance, lasting about ninety minutes and covering, depending on the programme chosen, the castle, the old mine museum or the pencil production line. The visitor centre and shop open Monday to Friday, but tour times are fixed and may not fall on the day you happen to be free, so this is a visit to arrange beforehand rather than to chance.