Rockenberg Castle

Rockenberg Castle
Alternative name (s):	Rockenburg
Creation time :	around 1317
Castle type :	Höhenburg, location
Conservation status:	Preserved essential parts
Standing position :	Knight
Place:	Rockenberg
Geographical location	50 ° 25 '44 "  N , 8 ° 44' 7"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 25 '44 "  N , 8 ° 44' 7"  E

The Castle Rock Mountain , rarely rock castle is a mountain castle on a small promontory at the edge of the old town center of today's community Rockenberg in Wetteraukreis in Hesse .

history

Rockenberg was first mentioned in 1191.

(According to the source statistical-topographical-historical description of the Grand Duchy of Hesse by Georg Wilhelm Justin Wagner - Grand Ducal Hessian Geometer - Third Volume, Province of Upper Hesse, Darmstadt 1830 about Rockenberger people in documents, p. 240 :) From the knight family who moved to Rockenberg named, the following appear by name in documents: Henricus de Rocgenberc, 1229. 1237. Johannes de Rochenburg 1324–1326. Mr. Johann von Rockenberg, the father of the knight Wernher von Rockenberg, 1329. 1334.

The castle may have been built at the beginning of the 14th century by the knight Johannes von Bellersheim , who increasingly called himself von Rockenberg . The construction time of the residential tower could be dendrochronologically determined to be 1317. At the beginning of the 15th century, the castle was possibly expanded as part of construction work on a village fortification.

After several changes of ownership up to the 17th century, the castle was given up as a residence. Presumably afterwards it served as a stable and storage area for a long time. At the beginning of the 18th century, the east wall of the castle had to give way to a representative building that served as the official and administrative headquarters of the Electoral Mainz winery Rockenberg, today known as the “Red House”.

In the 19th century, the castle first came into the possession of the Hessen-Darmstadt official Freiherr von Wiesenhütten, whose headquarters were in neighboring Nieder-Weisel . Among other things, he had a brandy distillery run in the castle. After 1860 in family ownership of the Hessen-Darmstadt house, it became the estate. In 1909 it was sold to the local community of Rockenberg, which sold or leased the lands belonging to the castle to local farmers and allocated the southern castle complex as building sites for private buildings. After the First World War , the castle was briefly used as a horse hospital by the nearby Butzbach garrison . Soon afterwards the castle returned to state ownership. During the Second World War it was temporarily used for military purposes. Plans that included extensive underground bunker systems were not implemented. However, extensive construction work was carried out inside the residential tower, including the installation of a staircase, to which the late Gothic castle chapel fell victim.

After the Second World War, the castle served temporarily as a refugee hostel. After that, the castle, which was renovated from 1985-87 and has recently been in the possession of the Rockenberg community again, is mainly used for community purposes, as a meeting room for the community parliament, as a wedding house, temporarily as a meeting place for young people, for exhibitions, lectures and training courses as well as a community archive and every year as the venue for the final of the reading competition of the Rockenberger Elementary School (Sandrose School). The former Kurmainzische cellar building was used as a residential and commercial building, at times also as a police station, and recently as a restaurant.

description

Rockenberg Castle is a rectangular castle complex with originally four round towers . The high surrounding walls with round corner towers have been preserved on two sides and a third stands free on the opposite side. In the middle of the courtyard stands a wohnturm similar Palas .

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  Enclosing wall with residential tower (2010)

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  Inside of the enclosure wall (2010)

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  Residential tower from the 14th century (2010)

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  free-standing round tower (2010)

literature

• Rudolf Adamy: Art monuments in the Grand Duchy of Hesse ... - Province of Upper Hesse, Friedberg district / (collaborator: Carl Bronner), Bergstraesser, Darmstadt 1895
• Johann Jakob Gesser: The Castle . In the S. (inter alia), Rockenberg, a Wetterau village in the mirror of history, a home book for the 800th anniversary , Rockenberg community, Rockenberg 1949, pp. 209-216 (important information, but sometimes fabulous)
• Johann Jakob Gesser: Monuments of the place . In: Rockenberger Heimat-, Kunst- und Gewerbeschau 1950 ..., Rockenberg municipality, Rockenberg 1950, pp. 21–41
• Heinz Wionski (arrangement): Cultural monuments in Hessen - Wetteraukreis . Teilbd. 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-528-06227-4
• Dieter Lehmann: The so-called 'Red House' of the Rockenberg castle complex - remarks on the historical background . (mschr. vervielf., 2 p.), Rockenberg 1999
• Rolf Müller (Ed.): Palaces, castles, old walls. Published by the Hessendienst der Staatskanzlei, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-89214-017-0 , p. 296f.

Web links

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

• Overview of the local history association

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dieter Lehmann: To the beginnings of Rockenberg . In: Festschrift Gesangverein “Concordia” 1853 Rockenberg e. V. / Coord. U. Shape .: Alfons Sauer, Rockenberg 2003, pp. 211–217