Lithuania · Restored
Panemunė Castle
Panemunės pilis
Panemunė Castle is an early 17th-century three-winged manor-castle on a wooded bluff above the Nemunas River in Lithuania. It presents a long, enclosed courtyard flanked by two prominent round towers and surrounded by parkland and an ornamental pond.
First raised
1604
Its prime
1604
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1604
What Panemunė Castle looked like in its prime.
Long three-winged stone manor forming a U around a central cobbled courtyard, with two tall cylindrical corner towers rising at the outer ends of the main wing. Pale plastered walls and regularly spaced windows contrast with steep red-tiled roofs and evenly spaced white chimneys along the ridges. The round towers show horizontal stone banding and conical red roofs. The complex sits atop a wooded river bluff above a wide meandering river, with a pond and parkland on the lower slopes; at its prime the roofs and towers are complete.
Its story
The story of Panemunė Castle.
Panemunė's origins stretch back to the medieval period. In 1535 the castle and its lands were granted by King-Grand Duke Sigismund the Old to the Stankevičius-Bilevičius family of Samogitia, who built a wooden manor house on the grounds of the almost-ruined castle. In 1597 Stanislovas Stankevičius-Bilevičius inherited the manor and soon sold it to János Eperjes, a timber merchant and nobleman of Hungarian descent.
Eperjes envisioned a grander residence and commissioned the construction of a new castle, raised in the early 17th century. His family remained owners for the next 158 years, but by the close of the 17th century their finances had deteriorated so far that parts of the estate were mortgaged or sold, and in the first half of the 18th century the residence fell into disrepair. In 1753 the family sold it to Colonel Leonas Igelstromas, the elder of Gulbinai.
An excellent example of Renaissance and Baroque architecture with elements of late Gothic design, a rectangular layout with four corner towers and a defensive wall, Panemunė is regarded as probably the most authentic residential castle surviving in Lithuania, standing restored on its wooded bluff above the Nemunas amid parkland and an ornamental pond.
Step inside
7 places to explore in 1604.
The record describes 7 distinct spots at Panemunė Castle, including the full exterior approach. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Build Your Own Castle
Recreate Panemunė Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1604, a photoreal reconstruction that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
Recreate this castle →Castle Siege
Play Castle Siege at Panemunė Castle.
A strategy game played on Panemunė Castle’s real ground plan: the same surveyed walls shown in the archive below. Post your finite garrison on the battlements between assaults, then hold out as rams, siege towers, trebuchets and sappers arrive in ever-worse waves.
Sign in free to see the garrison muster. One castle costs 150 Clan Coins and is yours forever.
Sign in to take command →Whose castle
Clans who held Panemunė Castle.
The families that held Panemunė Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Stankevičius-Bilevičius
Granted to the Stankevičius-Bilevičius family of Samogitia by Sigismund the Old in 1535; sold in 1597.
Eperjes
Bought by János Eperjes in 1597; the Eperjes family were owners for 158 years, selling in 1753.
From the archive
Panemunė Castle on paper: the measured plan and period views.
The survey plan and photographs below are the ground truth this page's reconstructions are checked against, drawn and photographed while the castle was still a working garrison. Every image is public-domain or openly licensed, with its source named.
Panemunės(Gelgaudų) pilies bokštas
· Heritage Conservation Library of the Cultural Heritage Center (via Europeana)
CC BY-SA
