Heimhof Castle

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Heimhof Castle
Heimhof Castle

Heimhof Castle

Alternative name (s): Heimhof Palace
Creation time : First mentioned in 1331
Castle type : Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status: Receive
Standing position : Clericals, nobles
Place: Ursensollen -Heimhof
Geographical location 49 ° 20 '44.7 "  N , 11 ° 45' 41.5"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 20 '44.7 "  N , 11 ° 45' 41.5"  E
Height: 477  m above sea level NN
Heimhof Castle (Bavaria)
Heimhof Castle

The castle Heimhof even lock Heimhof called, is a spur castle in Hausen Valley on a mountain ridge in the district Heimhof, Burggasse 11, the community Ursensollen in Bavaria Amberg-Sulzbach . Heimhof Castle is one of the most important still preserved castle monuments in the Upper Palatinate .

Geographical location

The castle is located on a mountain spur that juts east into the Hausen valley, about 25 m above the valley floor. A neck ditch, mostly hewn out of the rock, seals off the complex to the west. A drawbridge used to cross the neck ditch.

history

The castle was built in the 14th century by the lords of Haimenhofen and was mentioned in 1331 in the possession of the knight Heinrich Ettenstätter as a fiefdom of the Kastl monastery . In 1363 Heinrich Ettenstätter sold the castle to his four nephews. In 1385 it came into the possession of Dietrich Staufer zu Ehrenfels , keeper of Hohenburg , later Vogt of the Kastl monastery, who exchanged it in 1427 for the Veste Köfering with his brother-in-law Heinrich von Notthracht zu Wernberg . From 1477 to 1579 the lords of Ettling owned the complex before it was converted into a castle in the 16th century .

From the end of the 16th century until the 19th century, the castle was owned by the von Loefen family. The Löfen are an ironworking family ennobled in 1604 , who owned the Hammer Heimhof and part of the Fichtelberg blast furnace. Michael von Loefen, electoral privy councilor, transformed the medieval castle into a palace by building a renaissance wing on the south side .

The property was sold to 17 Heimhofer citizens in 1855. Then it fell into disrepair. In 1922 the architect and castle researcher Bodo Ebhardt (founder and long-time president of the German Castle Association ) bought the castle ruins on the advice of the Bavarian state and restored them. Heimhof Castle has been privately owned by the Maier family since 1958.

description

Heimhof Castle is a well-preserved example of a medieval residential castle. It consists of three storey Walmdachbauten with corner towers and a four-storey palace , probably from a residential tower has emerged. The castle complex has the following buildings: the "hunting lodge", the "New Castle", the "Veste house" with hofseitigem gable and the Bodo Ebhardt with truss built gatehouse and subsequent defensive wall . Some of the buildings are still furnished in the original way. The former curtain wall has only survived in the west. In the middle of the castle courtyard there is a 22 m deep well that reaches down to the groundwater. At a depth of 6 m, an underground passage leads from it to an overgrown opening at the west foot of the castle, which in the event of a siege enabled the crew to fail. The castle is privately owned and cannot be visited.

literature

  • Mathias Conrad: Heimhof Castle. amberg information , February 1993, pp. 11-17.
  • Ludger Fischer : Heimhof Castle in the Upper Palatinate. Bodo Ebhardt's failed living idea . In: Castles and Palaces . No. 37, 1996, ISSN  0007-6201 , pp. 80-85.
  • Stefan Helml: Castles and palaces in the Amberg-Sulzbach district . Druckhaus Oberpfalz, Amberg 1991, pp. 96-100.
  • Günter Moser, Bernhard Setzwein , Mathias Conrad: Upper Palatinate Castles - A journey to the witnesses of the past . Book and Kustverlg Oberpfalz, Amberg 2004, ISBN 3-935719-25-6 , 118-119.
  • Ursula Pfistermeister : Castles of the Upper Palatinate . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1974, ISBN 3-7917-0394-3 , p. 87.
  • Karl Wächter, Günter Moser: On the trail of knights and nobles in the Amberg-Sulzbach district - castles, palaces, noble residences, hammer estates . Buch- und Kunstverlag Oberpfalz, Amberg 1992, ISBN 3-924350-26-4 , pp. 26-28.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Franz Michael Ress (1960): Buildings, monuments and foundations of German ironworkers (written on behalf of the Association of German Ironworkers ). Verlag Stahleisen, Düsseldorf, p. 254.

Web links

Commons : Burg Heimhof  - Collection of images, videos and audio files