Unterriexingen Castle

Unterriexingen Castle
Castle and keep from the south
Alternative name (s):	Riexingen Castle
Creation time :	Castle after 1100, castle around 1750
Castle type :	Mountain castle on a river terrace
Conservation status:	Keep and stone house with a classicist castle extension
Standing position :	Ministerials and Barons
Construction:	Humpback cuboid
Place:	Unterriexingen ( Markgröningen )
Geographical location	48 ° 56 '19.8 "  N , 9 ° 3' 42.6"  E Coordinates: 48 ° 56 '19.8 "  N , 9 ° 3' 42.6"  E
Height:	210  m above sea level NN

The Castle Unterriexingen on a high terrace Enztal goes on a Built in 1100 Höhenburg back and is located on the northeast edge of the village Unterriexingen that today has become Markgröningen in Württemberg Baden- district of Ludwigsburg belongs.

history

Today's Unterriexingen Castle probably goes back to a " Staufer " castle complex belonging to the Lords of Riexingen , which was first mentioned in the late 12th century. The castle, which was built on the northern edge of a high terrace to the right of the Enz and surrounded on three sides by a ditch , presumably also served to secure the timber transport on the Enz and the parallel country road.

Coat of arms of the Lords of Riexingen (1394)

Castle and village "Under Rixingen" around 1682 (from Kieser's forest inventory book)

Castle from the northwest (pencil drawing 1840)

Meierhof next to the castle

Lords of the castle and palace

Between 1080 and 1120 the lords of Riexingen appear for the first time in the register of donors of the Hirsau and Reichenbach monasteries with “Sigeboto de Ruggesingen”, “Heinricus de Ruggsingen” and “Gerlach de Ruxingen” . From 1396 at the latest, when the Württemberg residents of “Undern Rixingen” and Talhausen, together with the renegade Grüninger citizens, had to swear eternal loyalty to the Württemberg counts by original feud letter, a changing noble family shared the place with the House of Württemberg . The Frauenkirche , in which numerous epitaphs have been preserved, served as the burial place of the local nobility . The oldest comes from Friedrich Osterbrunn von Riexingen († 1394).

The family of the Lords of Riexingen died out in 1506. They followed u. a. the barons of Urbach , Sachsenheim , Winterstetten , Nippenburg , Sternenfels , Lützelburg , Schertlin von Burtenbach and Leutrum zu Ertingen . The inhabitants of Unterriexingen were either subject to the local rule or subjects of Württemberg, initially depending on the location of their house on the left or right of the Glems as a natural border. With the rise of Württemberg to a kingdom in 1806, the family of the local aristocracy was also subordinated to the king by Napoleon's grace.

Conversion to a castle

The seat of local rule belonged from 1717 to 1763 and again from 1815 to the barons (from 1884 counts) Leutrum zu Ertingen, who built the medieval castle in the second half of the 18th century, including the large stone house and the keep, by adding a castle on the west side extended. Further renovations took place from 1815 and gave the castle its classicist appearance. The park belonging to the castle has an area of ​​around 40,000 square meters. To the south of the castle there are still stately farm buildings of the former Meierhof . A wine press was torn down. Today's owner is Irmela Princess of Ratibor and Corvey , b. Countess Leutrum von Ertingen (* 1937).

From the description of the Oberamt Vaihingen from 1856, to which Unterriexingen belonged at that time, the following is reported about the castle relics and the castle:

"" At the eastern end of the village stands as a special ornament of the place, like the next area, the castle belonging to the Baron von Leutrum-Ertingen with its well-known outbuildings and extensive, beautiful gardens that surround the castle and a distance to the Pull away the Enzthal slopes. The castle, built in the style of the last century, has three floors and one of its side wings is leaning against an old square tower, the remainder of an earlier knight's castle, apart from which inside and outside the wing building there is still some reminiscent of the architecture of the Middle Ages. The tower, 92 inches high, is massive and built from bossage at the corners. The walls of the same are ten inches thick in the lower parts, and taper towards the top, so that they are only three inches on the pinnacle. The tower never had a stone installation, but was a so-called cloak, with wooden floors and ladders inside; He owes his current staircase, through which he was made accessible again, to Baron Carl Friedrich Ludwig v., who died in 1852. Leutrum. With the exception of the top floor with windows, it only has bullet holes. From the pinnacle, from which a pine tree grows picturesquely, you can enjoy a very friendly view of the Enzthal and across the plateau to Nussdorf. "

Animal boarding

The castle in Unterriexingen achieved national fame with the animal boarding house it housed. Nikolaus Prinz von Ratibor (* 1962), the son of a veterinarian and breeder of Leonbergers , opened an accommodation facility for pets in the castle in 1995. The animal boarding house, known as the "Tierschlosshotel", offers animal owners the opportunity to accommodate suitable dogs, cats, birds or small animals for a fee while they are traveling or sick. As a boarding house, the castle received quite a bit of media coverage on television and in newspapers and magazines. In addition to the accommodation of animals, animal-free dog food is also sold directly from the castle.

The documentary The Southwest From Above portrays the castle with a strong focus on the dog hotel.

literature

• 1200 years of Markgröningen. Festival book for the 1200th anniversary of the first written mention of the name . Ed .: City of Markgröningen, Markgröningen 1979.
• Hans-Burkhard Hess: Unterriexingen - A historical kaleidoscope. Markgröningen 1993, ISBN 3-929948-00-1 .
• Walther-Gerd Fleck: Unterriexingen Castle . In: Burgen und Schlösser, magazine of the German Castle Association for Castle Studies and Monument Preservation , 20th year, No. 1, 1979.
• Ludwig Friedrich Heyd : History of the former Oberamts-Stadt Markgröningen with special consideration for the general history of Württemberg, mostly based on unpublished sources . Stuttgart 1829, facsimile edition, Markgröningen 1992.
• Gerhard Schmid: Unterriexingen Castle, a building survey . Markgröningen 1981.
• Elsbeth Sieb: Unterriexingen: In old pictures. Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar 1989, ISBN 3-89264-293-1 .

References and comments

1. ↑ First mention of a castle around 1180 or 1190; see Unterriexingen Castle on burgen-und-schloesser.net
2. ↑ Riexingen appears for the first time in 793 as “Ruotgisina” in an inventory of the former Lorsch monastery and in 902 as “Rutgesingon” again in a certificate of the monastery - see WUB Volume IV., No. N22, pp. 330–331 - WUB online
3. ↑ Before 1090, “Sigeboto de Ruggesingen” can be found in the donation book of the Reichenbach Monastery, see WUB Volume VI., No. N10, pp. 439–453 - WUB online ; between 1110 and 1120, “Heinricus de Ruggsingen” and “Gerlach de Ruxingen” are found as donors for Hirsau Monastery; see Eugen Schneider , Codex Hirsaugiensis , Stuttgart 1887, p. 27 and p. 36.
4. ↑ Source: Archival documents in "causa equestri" , Cap. I., Sect. I. No. 5, p. 5 and Ludwig Friedrich Heyd , history of the former Oberamts-Stadt Markgröningen with special regard to the general history of Württemberg , [...], Stuttgart 1829, facsimile edition, Markgröningen 1992, p. 33ff.
5. ^ Jochen Ansel, Karl Halbauer, Sophie Richter: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg. News bulletin of the state monument preservation. (PDF; 4.8 MB) The Romanesque crucifix of the Frauenkirche in Markgröningen-Unterriexingen. (No longer available online.) State Office for Monument Preservation in the Stuttgart Regional Council in conjunction with the specialist units for Monument Preservation in the Regional Council, January 2007, p. 32 , archived from the original on November 3, 2013 ; Retrieved January 8, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ Unterriexingen ( Memento of the original from April 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the local lexicon of Baden-Württemberg at the Baden-Württemberg State Archives 
7. ↑ Description of the Oberamt Vaihingen. 1856, Retrieved January 6, 2013 . 
8. ^ Uwe Bögel: A visit to the animal hotel. vkz .de, 2009, accessed on December 30, 2012 . 
9. ↑ Video gallery with TV reports (e.g. Vox, Sat 1, SWR, Das Erste) on care-royal.de
10. ↑ Press article on care-royal.de

Web links

Commons : Schloss Unterriexingen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Reconstruction drawing by Wolfgang Braun
• Riexinger Castle at the Working Group on Historical Research and Monument Preservation Markgröningen (AGD)
• www.care-royal.de - website of the "Tierschlosshotel"