Bethlen Castle, Criș

Bethlen Castle stands on a hill in the centre of the village of Criș, Daneș commune, in the Târnava Mare valley west of Sighișoara. The complex has a quadrilateral fortified enclosure with bastions at the corners. On the west side is the wing of Mihály Bethlen, with a loggia of semicircular arches resting on short columns, attached to the old round tower; opposite it stands the two-storey wing of Elek Bethlen. Criș belonged to the Bethlen family from the division of inheritance in 1305 until nationalisation in 1949. In 1559 György Bethlen and his wife Klára Károlyi rebuilt the old manor house in Renaissance style. Around 1598 Mihály Bethlen completed the residential wing and the first three levels of the tower. Between 1666 and 1683 Elek Bethlen built the wing that bears his name, the top two levels of the tower and the Italian-style bastion; in 1684 he founded a printing press here. After nationalisation the castle served as a warehouse for a state farm, and a fire in 1970 destroyed much of the roofs. The top level of the tower preserves coloured reliefs of seventeenth-century Transylvanian guards. The Elek wing, dated by a plaque of 1683, has a vaulted chapel with late Renaissance stucco work in its northern part. The castle park holds the family crypts, from the eighteenth century. The Bethlen Castle complex is a historic monument with LMI code MS-II-a-A-15639 (the castle of Georgius Bethlen, the castle of Alexius Bethlen, the fortified enclosure, the park and the crypts). In 2007 it was returned to the heirs of the Bethlen family, who in 2014 entrusted it for 50 years to the Saint Francis Foundation of Deva. The castle is under restoration and can be visited on guided tours.