Bellersheim castles

Bellersheim castles
Alternative name (s):	Lower castle, upper castle, middle castle
Creation time :	13th to 14th centuries
Castle type :	Low castles in the local area
Conservation status:	Remnants, rebuilt
Standing position :	Uradel
Place:	Hungen - Bellersheim
Height:	170 m above sea level NN

The Bellersheimer castles are the remains of three castles , the lower castle, upper castle and middle castle in the Bellersheim district of the city of Hungen in the district of Gießen in Hesse .

Time and builder are named differently. According to the town of Hungen, there is evidence of a castle in Bellershein since the 12th century. Possibly the middle castle , which like the upper castle was originally a moated castle . The upper castle was built in 1319 by a new knight, Conrat Riedesel , whose family gave themselves the addition of "von Bellersheim" from then on . The middle castle was probably built by Henne von Bellersheim around 1390 on the site of an older complex . The lower castle is roughly from the same period in the 14th century.

According to other statements, the three castles were built by the Lords of Bellersheim in the 13th to 14th centuries . They were a wealthy primal nobility dynasty widespread in the Wetterau and vassals of Arnsburg-Munzenberg. In 769 there was documentary evidence of a Nantherus von Baldratesheim with a donation to the Lorsch Monastery .

In 1588 all of the castles in Bellersheim were sold to Quirin von Riedesel .

Oberburg

Entrance to the upper castle

50 ° 27 '8 "N, 8 ° 50' 11" E

The upper castle, mentioned in 1452, is the largest of the castles, first documented at the beginning of the 14th century, and was a moated castle with a moat and drawbridge , the area of which is still partially surrounded by a high wall.

In 1588 Quirin von Riedesel bought all three Bellersheim castles. His dated coat of arms is still installed in the barn of the upper castle. The farm was later leased until the community took over the farm. In 1873 the community exchanged ownership of Oberburg and Mittelburg. The new owner was Prince Solms-Braunfels . He leased the castle as a courtyard. In the 19th century, the moat was filled in and turned into a garden. The house was expanded by the new owner Conrad Carl and destroyed in a bomb attack in 1944, killing the tenant couple Kammer. Since the house was rebuilt, only the road side still shows castle shapes in the substructure, the courtyard has been used for agriculture to this day. The sandstone gates and pillars of the large barns show the Riedesel coat of arms with the year 1607.

Mittelburg

The remains of the central castle

50 ° 27 ′ 11 "N, 8 ° 50 ′ 17" E

The centrally located middle castle, a moated castle built by Henne von Bellersheim in Gothic style from 1380 to 1390 with two houses and a large barn, was surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge . In the castle courtyard there was a draw well with a stone superstructure and the year 1515. The foundation walls and cellars of the buildings can still be found in the garden area. After the Riedesel family, the castle came to the Prince of Solms-Braunfels in 1783 . In 1873 the community exchanged the buildings of the upper castle for the middle castle and from then on used the middle castle as a school after setting up classrooms and a teacher's apartment until 1962. The second house was demolished during this time and the moat was filled in so that the road to Bettenhausen could be built. With the completion of a new school in 1962, the middle castle was sold as a residential building. Today only the stone house (Riedesel's coat of arms from 1590 above the entrance door) remains of the castle , as the former main house with a stair tower.

Lower castle

Courtyard entrance to the former lower castle in Bellersheim. On the left the castle wall with loopholes and an explanation board, on the right the manor house, which was rebuilt after a fire in the 19th century (main building: Münzenberger Straße 3 )

50 ° 27 '10 "N, 8 ° 50' 23" E

The lower castle changed hands several times: after the Riedesel family died out, whose coat of arms with the year 1599 is still preserved from the archway of the barn, a Herr von Waldeck followed . Later Count Christoph Martin von Degenfeld-Schonburg bought the lower castle. Between 1631 and 1755 lawsuits were pending at the Middle Rhine Imperial Knighthood, in which the Schonburgs (also Schomburg ) defended themselves against claims from the former tenants of the Riedesel property (lower castle with accessories in Muschenheim and Oberbessingen) von Hattstein as heirs of Gall von Gallenstein . Margarete von Groerodt, née Riedesel von Bellersheim, and her son Wolff had their estate Unterburg with accessories on March 30, 1631 to the cavalry master Cosmo Gall von Gallenstein and his wife Catharina Dorothea, née. Knobloch von Hatzbach leased, who had to provide a deposit of 1,500 florins . In 1833 Urias Hahn bought the 13th century castle from the community of Bellersheim , of which only barns and stables were left, along with the land belonging to it. He rebuilt the house on the still preserved vaulted cellars with the year 1593. The lower castle is still owned by the family today and is surrounded by a completely preserved high wall with built-in loopholes .

literature

Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 3. Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2000, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 , p. 300f.
Herbert Engel, Willi Heuchler: Hungen and its districts in old views , self-published, hungen 1986 (pictures of the castles)