The estate of Ekebyhov was created by Klas Horn (1583-1632) in the 1620s by merging farms Ekeby, Hovgården and Gällsta. Horn built a stone castle on three floors, which now no longer exists. The existing palace is a wooden two-storey building built in the 1670s, when Field Marshal Count Carl Gustaf Wrangel acquired Ekebyhov. Wrangel's death in 1676 halted the construction and it was resumed in 1701, when Baron Eric Lovisin had bought the estate.
After several ownership changes during the second half of the 1700s, Ekebyhov became as a residence of Albrecht Ihre in 1790. His son's grandson, Captain Bengt Ihre Johan Albrecht (1867-1956) built a nursery at the castle, planted with 400,000 trees, and seemed to increase fruit production in Sweden and Finland.
The Ekebyhov was owned by the family Ihre until 1980 and castle park with a wide variation of fruit trees has descended from Johan Ihre time. Today the castle is used as municipal conference center and cultural activities in association management.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.