Kimball Castle

The Kimball Castle was built in 1895 Benjamin Ames Kimball (a railroad baron and prominent NH citizen) on land overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee. Although the castle is not open to the general public, tours can be arranged by calling their offices. Of the 300 original acres on Lockes Hill, the Locke's Hill Nature Preserve was created on the remaining 260 acres where hiking and skiing trails have been laid out on it. The castle stands prominently overlooking "the Broads" of Lake Winnipesaukee in Gilford and is one of listed in the National Registry of Historic Places.

Benjamin Kimball was the president of Concord & Montreal Railroad during an era of great turmoil. The is said to have been designed after a castle along the Rhine River in Germany that Kimball saw while on vacation. Wintering in Concord at his mansion there in front of the Capital Theatre on Main Street, Kimball moved to Gilford the summer after the castle was built and had a railroad station built down the hill from his property so he could commute to and from work in his private rail car. Kimball died in 1919.

The town of Gilford has been seeking to sell the castle for commercial resort use so that it may more easily be accessible to the general public.

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