Angenstein

Angenstein Castle
	Overview of Angenstein Castle from the southwest (2009)
Creation time :	Mid 13th century
Conservation status:	partially preserved
Place:	Duggingen
Geographical location	47 ° 27 '47.9 " N , 7 ° 36' 17.3" E Coordinates: 47 ° 27 '47.9 " N , 7 ° 36' 17.3" E ; CH1903: 612530 / 256960
Height:	315 m

Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap

The Angenstein Castle is a medieval castle and is located on the territory of the municipality Duggingen ( Basel-Country ).

location

The castle rises as a striking building above a narrow gorge ( Klus ) of the Birs between Aesch and Duggingen . By Angenstein the road of force by the River Basel to Delémont and the trackbed of Juratrain that performs in a short rail tunnel under the castle. On the opposite bank of the Birs are the customs house belonging to the entire complex and the inn.

investment

The original access to Angenstein Castle rose directly from the Birsbrücke on the western side of the rock head up to the castle. Today's access to the saddle in the northeast of the castle has been added recently. The old path led to a small kennel ( visible on pictures by Emanuel Büchel , not preserved) and then to the first actual castle gate.

The outer ring wall, which was equipped with notches and battlements, was - if not integrated into the building - removed down to the height of the garden walls when the castle was transformed into a palace. The inner bering protected the donjon on the west, north and northeast sides and could be passed through the second gate on the west side. Half-timbered buildings that contain two apartments have been placed on this circular wall since around 1560.

Apartments on the Inner Bering (April 2009)

The donjon has a dimension of 16 by 19 meters and a wall thickness of 2 meters. It is empty today, but the walls are still up to the full height of the original 5 floors. On the outside, a number of beam holes can still be seen very well, which supported a wooden portico . At the top of the top of the wall of the donjon ran a battlement: the pyramid roof only touched down on the inner edge of the wall of the donjon.

The castle chapel (consecrated to St. Anna and St. Wendelin) can be reached from the donjon . The chapel is still adorned by a glass window built in 1562 ( triptych with Good Friday, Christmas and Pentecost). The canton of Basel-Landschaft offers the possibility of holding weddings in Schloss Angenstein (contact: Laufen civil registry office).

The system has been tunnelled since 1870: with the construction of the Jura Railway (today SBB ), the castle rock had to be broken through, as the narrow gorge did not offer enough space for the railway tracks.

history

The name of the castle is chosen according to the location, because Angenstein means "narrow stone" (not to be confused with the Engenstein ruin ). The motivation for founding the castle in the middle of the 13th century is likely to have been the possibility of creating one's own property and not with the collection of customs: At that time, the passage into the Laufental was still largely over the Blattenpass , as the narrowness in the Chessiloch up to the Was not passable in the middle of the 18th century.

Due to the poor sources, the builders of the castle cannot be determined: Müller suspects the Counts of Pfirt (Ferrette), while Meyer describes the Episcopal Ministerial Münch as possible castle builders . As early as 1271, however, half of the property and rights were in the hands of the Bishop of Basel , who loaned his half to the Counts of Thierstein . In any case, before the middle of the 14th century, the two feudal givers Habsburg-Laufenburg and Bishop of Basel lend the fortress to the Counts of Thierstein and these to the branch of the Münch von Landskron. They repaired the castle immediately after damage in the Basel earthquake in 1356 and used it until the Münch von Landskron family died out with the death of Hans Münch in 1460.

Thus the fiefdom falls back to the Thiersteiner, and they enfeoff Veltin von Neuenstein with the fortress. But this is in dispute with the city of Basel, and after several violent attacks, Basel begins to build pressure, so that the Thiersteiner in 1486 passed the fiefdom on to Friedrich Kilchmann and Elisabeth Offenburg. After the castle burned down in 1494, it was repaired by Ludwig Kilchmann, the brother and Vogt. In the fire in 1517, the then owner Wolfgang von Lichtenfels was killed. After the fire and the extinction of the Thiersteiners in 1519, a scramble between Solothurn and the Basel bishop over the castle ruins and the associated goods and rights started, which the bishop could decide for himself in 1522. However, only with the condition that the fortress may no longer be built.

When the waves had calmed down a bit, in 1557 the Chancellor Dr. Wendelin Zipper loaned the ruins from his bishop Melchior von Lichtenfels and began to rebuild them around 1560. However, under pressure from Solothurn, he was no longer allowed to expand the complex into a fortress: The donjon remained empty and various half-timbered buildings were erected to ensure operation (residential buildings, economic buildings, chapel). The castle begins to turn into a castle. The entire complex remained in the possession of the Zipper family until 1751: One interruption was the occupation by Swedish troops in the Thirty Years' War from 1637 to 1640: Because the federal troops requested were too late, Duke Bernhard von Weimar was able to use the castle as his headquarters.

v. l. No. Castle, bridge, customs house and inn (April 2009)

After 1751, the castle passed to the Noël and de Grandvillars families, who were related to the Zipper family, and remained undamaged in the turmoil of the revolution as it was privately owned. The last representative of these families is Jean Michel Noël, who died at the beginning of the 19th century. As part of the resolutions of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the castle fell into the territory of the Canton of Bern , but remained private property (owned by the Bertschi family and descendants since the mid-19th century).

Angenstein Castle has been owned by the Canton of Basel-Stadt since 1951 . The castle burned down for the last time in 1984 and was restored by 1991. The two bells in the castle chapel, which were installed in 1826, 'disappeared' after the fire in 1984; they were dug up from their involuntary hiding place in the nearby forest in the spring of 2010 by an amateur archaeologist.

The two apartments mentioned are inhabited, which limits the accessibility of the castle: When visiting, the complex can also be studied from the outside.

The customs house belonging to the overall complex is now rented for residential purposes, while the inn is still in operation as a restaurant.

A scout department and several other organizations and companies in the area are named after the castle.

Lock point Angenstein

Angenstein Castle seen from the main road. The buildings in the front left are not part of the castle, but the camouflaged army bunker A 3476 Hauptwerk Ost

The Angenstein barrier is a military historical monument of national importance. The smaller buildings at the bottom of the castle are camouflaged concrete bunkers of the infantry plant Angenstein A 3476, main plant east (with cannon openings) of the Swiss army ( border brigade 4 ) from the Second World War . Access to the three-story factory is from the southwest or from the railway tunnel below. The "castle camouflage" was only created in the 1960s. The counterworks west is the Muggenberg A 3476 infantry plant . The bunkers belong to the canton, are maintained by the officers' society of both Basel OGBB and can be viewed on request.

Angenstein Infantry Plant A 3476 Main Plant East ⊙47.463236 7.604312
Infantry plant Muggenberg A 3476 counterwork West ⊙47.462536 7.60362

literature

Werner Meyer : Castles from A to Z - Burgenlexikon der Regio . Published by the Castle Friends of both Basels on the occasion of their 50th anniversary. Klingental printing works, Basel 1981, pp. 153–155.
CA Müller: Angenstein Castle . Reprint from the local calendar and yearbook of work, 1960.
Rudolf Wackernagel : Angenstein Castle . Basler Jahrbuch , Verlag R. Reich, Basel 1891, pp. 29–40.