Schwalbach Castle on the Taunus

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Schwalbach Castle on the Taunus
The former castle as a manor around 1838: original drawing in 1838 by Carl Theodor Reiffenstein, redrawn by Ferdinand Luthmer before 1907

The former castle as a manor around 1838: original drawing in 1838 by Carl Theodor Reiffenstein , redrawn by Ferdinand Luthmer before 1907

Alternative name (s): Schwalbacher Burg, Greiffenclauische Burg
Creation time : first mentioned in 1345
Castle type : Niederungsburg
Conservation status: Burgstall
Place: Schwalbach am Taunus
Geographical location 50 ° 8 '55.6 "  N , 8 ° 32' 14.7"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 8 '55.6 "  N , 8 ° 32' 14.7"  E
Height: 160  m above sea level NN

The Burgschwalbach am Taunus , even Schwalbacher castle or Greiffenclauische Burg called, is an Outbound Wasserburg in the town of Schwalbach am Taunus in the Main-Taunus-Kreis in Hesse . It was located in the south of the old town center at the southern end of today's Burgstrasse .

history

Map of the place around 1670. The castle is marked with " f " on the northeast corner of the map and is called Greiffenclauische Burg

The place is probably first mentioned in 782 as " Sualbach " in a deed of donation from the Lorsch Monastery . In 1213 the Knights of Schwalbach ( Henricus de Swalebach and his brother Hartmudus ) appeared for the first time in a deed of donation to the Eberbach monastery . In 1237 Hartmut von Schwalbach is mentioned, who as a witness with a Hartmut von Sulzbach for Ulrich von Münzenberg , the last male descendant of the Reichsministeriale Hagen-Münzenberg , sealed in a document. Johann von Schwalbach is proven as Vogt from 1242. The von Schwalbach family, also called Vögte von Schwalbach or Schwalbach von Niederhofheim or Schwalbach von Boppard and with three swallows in their coat of arms , are to be distinguished from the unrelated but named noble family of the Lords of Schwalbach . The bailiffs of Schwalbach were already divided into two lines in the 14th century, and died out in the male line in 1569 with the death of Lorenz von Schwalbach . Since the city was always dependent on foreign masters, their representatives as bailiffs or mayors exercised their rule, including jurisdiction , in Schwalbach Castle.

The location of the castle at the confluence of the Waldbach and Sauerbornsbach rivers is interpreted as evidence of a moated castle. In 1326 the castle with the bailiwick over the village with the court was a fiefdom of the Falkensteiner . The Schwalbach Castle was first mentioned directly in a document in 1345. This year had Heinrich Vogt of Schwalbach the city of Frankfurt an opening rights grant. After the Falkenstein family died out in 1418, the fief went to the Eppstein-Königstein family in 1445 . A truce from 1452 testifies to the presence of a castle rampart . After the Eppsteiners died out in 1535, the Stolbergs took over the rule.

After the Schwalbachers died out in 1569, the castle loan also fell to the Counts of Stolberg. They probably renewed the main building in the Renaissance style around 1573 . Disputes after the death of Count Ludwig zu Stolberg and the takeover of rule by his brother Christoph von Stolberg with Kurmainz , who also claimed the inheritance, led to violent clashes in 1581, in which Kurmainz was victorious. From 1604 Archbishop Johann Schweikhard von Kronberg implemented the Counter Reformation in Schwalbach .

In 1622 the castle was destroyed by Brunswick troops in the Thirty Years' War and partially rebuilt around 1662 as the seat of Kurmainzischer Schultheiss. The castle itself came into the possession of the Lords of Greiffenclau from 1669 , as was also documented in a map from 1670. Since 1819 the castle was a ducal Nassau domain estate .

It is not known when the fortifications were razed. The facility, in changing ownership, fell into disrepair more and more. As the manager's building for an agricultural domain, it came to an end in 1930 when the last tenant ceased operations on the estate. However, the surrounding property of the farm was in great demand. The local farmers wanted to lease additional arable and pasture land to their farms . In addition, an airfield for military purposes was built on domain land south of the village and the estate .

The Allied air raids in World War II , the heaviest bombing in Schwalbach on September 25, 1944, had caused severe damage to the existing buildings at the facility. After the end of the war, displaced persons and refugees were accommodated in the ruins . A sideline settlement for expellees was built on domain land in the early 1950s. The Schwalbacher residential town Limesstadt would not have come into being without the domain land. The remains were razed from 1959 to 1960 and the Burgstall was built over with a hardware store. Today, a model of the system on the premises of the building materials specialist trade Moos and a memorial plaque in bronze in front of the fire station on Burgstrasse reminds of the former location of the castle.

description

Since there are no remains or drawings of the original castle, only the Renaissance structures of the 16th and 17th centuries can be described, as they were laid down with later renovations and new buildings around 1960.

In addition to several outbuildings, which were arranged at right angles around the main building in the manor style and had stepped gables and pitched roofs , the castle-like main building consisted of a two and a half-story right-angled main house with a pointed hipped roof , which can also be referred to as a crooked hip roof due to the slightly shortened narrow sides . In modern times, the main house only has a pointed gable roof. On one long side there was a stair tower with a pointed hood , but this was integrated into the main roof, the tower also merged into the building and had inclined parallelogram-like staircase windows.

On the side opposite the main entrance of the house was an extension with a sloping roof extending from the stair tower to the first floor. The opposite main entrance with a flight of stairs and sandstone portal above the Gothic entrance door was located on a corner of a short side of the house, which had a polygonal residential tower also integrated into the main building . This two-storey, the pöygone pointed roof starting over the eaves of the main roof and merging into this. In modern times, the roof of the residential tower leans against the soaring gable. Both floors are divided by a circular frieze all the way around, with high, Romanesque - style windows on the second floor , which were designed as simple, wide semicircular arches on the ground floor. Windows of the main house that almost run into the stair tower allow the conclusion that the stair tower and the main house are of different times. It is reported that the year 1538 was engraved on a cellar door of the castle. This allows at least a dating for the main house and the conclusion that even before the Stolberg Renaissance renovation at the beginning of the 16th century, earlier renovations and extensions had already taken place.

Since monument protection around 1960 was not yet a major priority, and although the state conservator at the time judged the historic building to be " very valuable ", no path was taken to preserve, renovate or restore the property. Neither the state of Hesse , nor the Main-Taunus district, or the municipality itself had the necessary funds at that time. In 1960 the Schwalbach Castle finally fell victim to demolition .

literature

  • Rudolf Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen. 800 castles, castle ruins and fortifications. 2nd Edition. Wartberg-Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 1995, ISBN 3-86134-228-6 . P. 481
  • Ulrich Wolfgang Walther Simon: Die Niederadligen von Schwalbach am Taunus , in: Rad und Sparren, Heft 23, (Ed.) Historischer Verein Rhein-Main-Taunus eV, Verlag Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1993, 51 pages

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Knappe: Medieval castles in Hessen , p. 481
  2. ↑ a b c d e Peter Lorenz: 50 years ago, Schwalbach Castle fell victim to the demolition hammer , online at www.historische-eschborn.de , accessed on November 11, 2016
  3. ^ After research by the Schwalbach City Archives
  4. ↑ Dieter Farnung: 1225 years Schwalbach am Taunus , In: Between Main and Taunus Volume 14, Yearbook of the Main-Taunus-Kreis, (Ed.) District Committee of the Main-Taunus-Kreis, Hofheim 2006, pp. 87-91, ( Online Abstract )
  5. ↑ Simon: Vita 1987–1989 Head of the Schwalbach am Taunus City Archives, private website, accessed November 12, 2016