The Livonian Order founded Põltsamaa Castle in 1272 as a purely defensive crusader fortress on the banks of the Põltsamaa River. It has a square plan with three gates, an inner courtyard and a moat, with additions in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and a bastion and cannon towers in the sixteenth. Duke Magnus of Holstein used it as his residence from 1570 to 1578.
King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden gave it to Field Marshal Herman Wrangel in 1623, who transformed it into a late-Renaissance home. Woldemar Johann von Lauw acquired it in 1750 and rebuilt it as a rococo palace, with a lavish interior in 1772 and 1773 and stucco by Johann Michael Graff.
The Great Northern War burned it, and an air raid in 1941 almost completely destroyed it. Only ruins remain, with a restored church.
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