Old Castle (Nieder-Beerbach)

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Old castle
Remains of a square tower and building remains in the inner castle area

Remains of a square tower and building remains in the inner castle area

Creation time : unknown, presumed 11th century
Castle type : Höhenburg, Spornburg
Conservation status: Burgstall
Standing position : unknown
Place: Mühltal - Nieder-Beerbach
Geographical location 49 ° 46 '48.9 "  N , 8 ° 40' 55.8"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 46 '48.9 "  N , 8 ° 40' 55.8"  E
Height: 290  m above sea level NN
Old Castle (Hesse)
Old castle

The Old Palace is can otherwise suspect as her name, no down-laid Castle , but probably one of the end of the early Middle Ages derived Postal , probably a motte above today Mühltaler hamlet of Nieder-Beerbach in Darmstadt-Dieburg in Hesse was.

Geographical location

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Spur side: View in west direction into the neck ditch and castle wall with modern passage
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View in south direction (mountain side) of the castle wall from the inside of the castle

The castle was east of the road from the Mühltaler district Nieder-Beerbach to Ober-Beerbach at the tip of an elongated mountain spur that slopes steeply to the Beerbach valley, opposite the southern exit of the ridge of the castle hill of Frankenstein Castle opposite the White Mountain , about one kilometer south of Nieder-Beerbach. The spur with the castle stable is bordered by the Beerbach to the west and by the two tributaries that flow from the Bieberwoog forest to the east . The spur can be seen as the outlet of the Adlerhöhe to the south and connected by a pass path .

description

Several interpretations are discussed for the assignment:

Documentary evidence of the owner of the castle, the exact time and appearance could not be documented exactly up to the present. The acquisition of the Nieder-Beerbach district has been known since ancient times as the "Old Castle" and associated with a castle, also in oral tradition. The 113 acre large Bieberwoog , a mix of farmland, forest and meadow area had its own judicial district, and was probably due to the free dialed castle. In 1597 it was described as " ... is not in any cent and the three villages are in three cents ". This can possibly be related to King Ruprecht I's document , in which on June 2, 1402 , he granted the Nieder-Beerbach Castle and the Dörrenberg forest district imperial directness. In 1855 a helmet from the 12th or 13th century was found in the area, which is kept in the Hessian State Museum in Darmstadt . It is known as the Frankensteiner helmet . The Nieder-Beerbach pastor and history researcher Heinrich Eduard Scriba (1802–1857) was still able to describe the remains of the wall around 1845, but these were gradually used as building material by the farmers in the area .

Rainer Kunze puts the origin in the 11th century and sees the complex surrounded by a moat and two palisade rings. The moat and the remnant of the wall behind are still faintly recognizable. In the middle of the Burgstalles there is now a large depression, which after excavations in 1976, during which foundations were found, are interpreted as a permanent house or residential tower measuring 10 by 15 meters with a wall thickness of about 2 meters. Only the remains of the western side remained, which have already disappeared under the leaves and earth. Today there are only a few reading stones left.

The own excavations of the Nieder-Beerbacher Adam Breitwieser suggest that the old castle could not only have been a simple tower castle, but also had a residential house and other buildings, so it could well have been a complete castle. Herbs were grown on the area, e.g. B. Lesser celandine or Bärlapp , found as they were previously used in castle gardens . In addition, a very ancient rose bush was found , which is very prickly, whose flowers are not fragrant and which is resistant to pests. Offspring can now be found in some of the town's gardens and in the botanical garden of TU Darmstadt .

The recent assumptions made by historians that the castles in the Beerbachtal below the Frankenstein can be regarded as predecessor castles and possible first ancestral seat of the presumed Count of Berbach and that the comes de Berebach can be assigned as Carolingian main counts are not certain.

  • Wall side valley side

  • steeply sloping wall on the valley side, northwest side (towards Beerbach)

  • modern passage on the wall towards NNE (valley side)

  • Wall on the valley side, northeast side (Beerbach tributaries)

investment

In 2014, on the one hand, a completely encircling oval castle wall measuring around 60 by 35 meters, which is stepped into terraces on the valley side and cut south and north-northeast by a modern forest path, and the cervical ditch that delimits the mountain spur to the south can still be seen. Remnants of a nearly square defense tower or small building, followed by a recess, which can be assigned to the palace or a keep-like building with dimensions of around 12 by 15 meters, complete the few remains. The existing stone remains show unilateral processing. Its size and appearance allow it to be interpreted as a tower hill castle . Dating is not possible because no archaeological investigations have taken place so far .

  • Castle stalls

  • inner castle area, building remains

  • inner castle area, tower remains - close-up

  • Stones in the area of ​​the building remains

  • inner castle area, remains of the tower

Interesting

The little castle of Ober-Beerbach

Above and southwest of the remains of the old castle and northwest of the location of Ober-Beerbach on the slope of the mountain road to Seeheim-Jugenheim, northwest of the Ober-Beerbacher sports field, there are also remains of an approximately rectangular ring wall with a ring ditch . Whether these remains can be interpreted as possible forerunners of the Old Castle and the Old Castle, and thus also of Frankenstein Castle, can not be decided without archaeological investigations , as many ancient or Celtic ring walls are known from the area. Eduard Anthes , prehistoric around 1900, assigned the complex to the Celts at that time. More recent assignments see it as the 11th century castle stables.

literature

  • Hans Buchmann: Castles and palaces on the mountain road. Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-8062-0476-4 , pp. 60-62.
  • Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 2nd Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 1995, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 , p. 528.
  • Rainer Kunze: Beerbach, Breuberg, Frankenstein: Exemplary in the northern Odenwald. In: History sheets for the Bergstrasse district. Vol. 38, 2005, pp. 25-51.
  • Thomas Steinmetz: Early low castles in southern Hesse and adjacent areas. Ober-Kainsbach 1989.
  • Peter and Marion Sattler: Castles and palaces in the Odenwald. Verlag Edition Diesbach, Weinheim 2004, p. 59.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Hans Buchmann: Castles and palaces on the Bergstrasse. Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 1986, pp. 53/61 f.
  2. ↑ The assumption that the terraces served as a kennel is speculative, as no second ring wall has currently been found and would not match the assumed age of the castle.
  3. ^ Entry on Ober-Beerbach, Schlösschen in the scientific database " EBIDAT " of the European Castle Institute