Burgstall Old House (Pommelsbrunn)

Burgstall old house
Burgstall Altes Haus - View of the upper castle from the lower castle to the west
Creation time :	probably during the 13th century
Castle type :	Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status:	Burgstall
Place:	Pommelsbrunn - old house
Geographical location	49 ° 29 '44.7 "  N , 11 ° 30' 59.2"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 29 '44.7 "  N , 11 ° 30' 59.2"  E
Height:	532.9  m above sea level NN

View of the Mühlkoppe from Pommelsbrunn

The Postal Old House is an Outbound probably late medieval nobility castle unknown-sized map that south of the parish village of Pommelsbrunn in Middle Franconia Nuremberg County in Bavaria , Germany stood on a spur top. Very few traces of the ground have survived from the castle, the castle rock now serves as a lookout point .

Geographical location

The castle stable of the Spornburg is located about 900 meters south-southeast of the church in Pommelsbrunn on the Spornkuppe at 532.9  m above sea level. NN high Mühlkoppe, the north-north-west foothills of the 558.5  m above sea level. NN high Lauberg. About 175 meters above the confluence of the Arzloher Talbach in the Högenbach , the Mühlkoppe jumps out to the northwest from the plateau and forms a mountain spur that was used to build the castle.

There are a few other former medieval castles nearby, Lichtenstein Castle stood above Pommelsbrunn , today only a ruin. To the north lies the Purkstal tower , the remainder of a tower hill castle , to the northeast, above the village of Oed, lies the Breitenthal castle stable , which is also known as the “tower in the Weidenthal”, and to the east lies the Lichtenegg castle ruins , a striking vantage point. Not far away in a south-westerly direction is the formerly important Reicheneck Castle , now a ruin above Lake Happurg, the Hacburg and Hundsdruck castle stables near the parish village of Happurg to the west , and an unknown castle stables on the Vogelfels to the south.

History of the castle

There is no historical information about the castle, it is attributed to the late 13th or early 14th century through ceramic finds. The old house was first mentioned in a loan book in 1331, but it is not known whether the castle still existed at that time. The castle could have had a protective function for the important old road next to it. A scientifically based investigation has not yet taken place (2009).

The cartographer Paul Pfinzing saw clear remains of ruins in 1594, he designated the place in his atlas as "old schlos". Two towers of the ruin are clearly visible on his representation. In the opportunity of the landscape mitsampt den furthen und helten darinnen , a site exploration of the imperial city of Nuremberg before the Landshut War of Succession of 1504/05, in which strategically important places were listed, the old house is not mentioned. The hamlet of Althaus , located south of the castle, cannot be associated with the castle, as it has only existed since the 19th century.

Since further ramparts can be found outside the medieval castle complex, it is assumed that the castle was built in the area of ​​a prehistoric rampart.

Today the place of the abandoned castle is thickly covered with forest, only a few walls and a moat have survived. The freely accessible Burgstall can be reached via a hiking trail from Pommelsbrunn over the northern flank of the Mühlkoppe.

The ground monument , registered by the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments as a "medieval castle stable", today bears the monument number D-5-6535-0011.

Description of the castle stables

General plan of the Altes Haus castle stable

The summit plateau of the Mühlkoppe forms a flat and wooded rectangular area that extends from southeast to northwest. Its north, west and east sides drop steeply into the stream valleys, only the south-east side is moderately sloping into the plateau of the adjacent mountains. On the southwest side you can still clearly see a stone wall, the rest of the collapsed curtain wall . On the west side of the abandoned castle complex you can still see walls that show the course of the curtain wall. A ditch in front of the former curtain wall, which could also protect the castle on the endangered southwest side, is not recognizable.

The former entrance was probably also on this side and was probably identical to today's entrance.

The former castle with the dimensions 100 by 55 meters is divided into a lower and an upper castle. The lower castle stretched crescent-shaped from the south side over the west side to the north side around the upper castle. In the north, the lower castle was only designed as a kennel , in the south and west its area was larger, there were former buildings, but nothing can be seen anymore.

The oval and flat surface of the upper castle, measuring 20 by 50 meters, was three meters above the lower castle. It was reached via a smaller rocky elevation, probably used as a bridge support, which was separated from the surface of the upper castle by a section ditch. The trench was about twenty meters long, two meters wide, and its bottom was about two and a half meters below the surface of the upper castle. The plateau serving as a bridge support was about one and a half meters below the upper castle. There used to be a bridge or drawbridge over the moat . On the south side of the upper castle you can still see a remnant of a wall, perhaps the upper castle was also surrounded by a circular wall. In the northern half of the upper castle there is a trough-shaped depression, possibly the rest of a building. The plateau of the upper castle drops to the south, west and north to the lower castle by about three meters, on the east side it drops steeply into the valley of the Högenbach.

Remains of the walls of the former buildings are nowhere above ground.

literature

• Robert Giersch, Andreas Schlunk, Berthold Frhr. von Haller: Castles and mansions in the Nuremberg countryside . Published by the Altnürnberger Landschaft eV, Lauf an der Pegnitz 2006, ISBN 978-3-00-020677-1 , pp. 331–332.
• Walter Heinz: Former castles in the vicinity of Rothenberg, Part 3 (Vom Rothenberg and its surroundings, issue 15/3) . Published by the Heimatverein Schnaittach, Schnaittach 1992, pp. 162–164.
• Wilhelm Schwemmer: The art monuments of Middle Franconia, Volume X: District of Hersbruck . R. Oldenbuorg Verlag, Munich 1959, pp. 244–245.
• Hellmut Kunstmann : Communications of the Altnürnberger landscape . 1955, issue 2, published by Altnürnberger Landschaft eV, p. 19.

Web links

Commons : Burgstall Altes Haus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Burgstall Old house on the page "Castles and manors in the Nuremberg countryside"

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} map services ( memento of the original from December 19, 2012 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. of the BfN  
2. ^ The Burgstall on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation
3. ^ The Burgstall on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation
4. ^ Source history: Robert Giersch, Andreas Schlunk, Berthold Frhr. von Haller: Castles and mansions in the Nuremberg countryside , p. 331
5. ^ Burgstall Altes Haus on the site of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation