Rhédey Castle in Sângeorgiu de Pădure

Rhédey Castle stands in the centre of Sângeorgiu de Pădure, at 8 Școlii Street, in the Târnava Mică valley. It has a ground floor and an upper floor, with 13 rooms arranged in a U around a hall with a carved wooden staircase; the ceilings of the hall and the ballroom carry Baroque paintings. An earlier castle on the site is attributed to the Barcsai and Kornis families in the sixteenth century, and the Rhédey family settled here in the seventeenth century. The present form of the castle dates from the 1807-1809 rebuilding by Count László Rhédey. Countess Claudine Rhédey, wife of Duke Alexander of Württemberg, was born here in 1812; her granddaughter Mary of Teck became the wife of King George V of Great Britain. After the First World War the castle passed to the Schuller merchant family, in 1935 it was bought by the local community, and from 1948 to 2010 it housed the village school. Restoration funded by the Ministry of Culture was completed in June 2015. Upstairs, the exhibition "Mysteria Residentiae Rhédey", opened in September 2019, uses modern technology across five rooms to present the life of the Rhédey family and the fate of Countess Claudine. A memorial room is dedicated to the village of Bezidu Nou, flooded by the Bezid reservoir, and another room holds a permanent exhibition of the painter Victor Datu, who was born in the town. The castle is a listed historic monument (LMI code MS-II-m-A-15792) and is open to visitors.