Rochlitz Castle was built in the Late Gothic architect^ural style on the site of an early Burgward from the 10^th century. The complex with the two conspicuous towers is sited on a rock plateau beside the river Zwickauer Mulde. The castle was secondary residence, widow’s home and hunting palace for the Wettin dynasty. A closer look at one of the towers, the so-called Finstere Jupe, reveals that local rocks were used to build the castle. The tower’s massive walls were built with spotted slate, which was broken on the nearby quarries in the Mulde Valley. This rock encloses a 550 million year old sequence of rocks called the Granulite Mountains. The outstanding details on facades and inside the castle were created using volcanic Rochlitz porphyry tuff which has been extracted from the neighbouring hill for centuries. These design highlights are considered to be a special Saxon form of Late Gothic architecture. This was the first commission for architect Arnold von Westfalen to work for the Counts Ernst and Albrecht von Wettin in the 1470s. He designed the windows for the Castle Chapel choir and the transept, creating a new groundbreaking form: delicate tracery that ends at the top in the shape of gathered curtains. These Vorhangbogenfenster (“curtain arch windows”) and other innovations first successfully tested in Rochlitz were later extensively incorporated into the architecture of Albrechts Castle in Meissen.

The development of the cultural landscape around Wermsdorf and the castles of Wermsdorf is closely linked to the royal hunt: The Forest of Wermsdorf was one of the traditional hunting grounds of the Saxon rulers, the Wettin dynasty. The main trees growing in the mixed deciduous forests back then were beech, oak, birch, spruce and alder in the riparian zones. This is the natural climax forest community since the ice age. Initially a hunting lodge was built in the village at the end of the 16^th century. At the beginning of the 17^th century a hunting mansion, the Alte Jagdschloss was built opposite the lodge. However this Renaissance house with gardens soon did not meet the needs of Elector Friedrich August II. When he married the imperial daughter Maria Josepha of the Hapsburg dynasty, his father, King August “the strong“ commissioned the construction of the Hunting Palace Hubertusburg on a hill from 1721 onwards – a gigantic baroque building in the French style.  Taking into account the conversions overlooked by senior master builder Johann Christoph Knöffel from 1743 onwards this complex is considered to be one of the largest and architecturally important palaces in Europe.

The royal family were not only served exquisite meat but also farm-raised fish, especially trout and carp. The oldest ponds around Wermsdorf are already about 500 years old and have been farmed since then. Today, the forest and pond landscape of Wermsdorf is a popular hiking and tourist destination. Just one more example of the high recreational value of the cultural landscape Geopark Porphyry Land.