Presteneck Castle

Presteneck Castle in Stein am Kocher

The Presteneck Castle is a renaissance temporal surge in Stein am Kocher (district of Neuenstadt ) in the district of Heilbronn in northern Baden-Württemberg .

history

The moated castle , located in the south of the historical town below the Upper Castle , probably existed as a castle in the Middle Ages. The village of Stein and the castles Presteneck and zum Stein were sold to Kurmainz by the Lords of Weinsberg in 1335 . Presteneck and the rest of the village came as a fief to the Berlichingen . These were followed by the Echter von Mespelbrunn and these by the Horneck von Hornberg as fief takers.

In 1549 Eberhard von Gemmingen zu Bürg (around 1500–1572) bought Presteneck and the suburb. His entire property was initially administered jointly by him and his sons Eberhard (1527–1583), Hans Walther († 1591) and Reinhard (1532–1598). Ten years after Eberhard's death, an inheritance was divided in 1582, in which Hans Walther received Presteneck. The new construction of the moated castle should go back to Hans Walther in 1580 instead of the older castle. According to the chronicle of the Schöntal Monastery of Prior Bartholomäus Kremer (1589–1661), the builder of the castle was the older, but young, brother Pleikard († 1547). After the death of Hans Walther, his inheritance was divided up in 1598. Presteneck Castle was then owned by his nephew Schweikard (1556–1617). From this it came to Hans Philipp von Gemmingen († 1635). During the Thirty Years' War he sided with the Swedish side and put together a riding company from his own resources. As a result, Tilly's Catholic troops raided his Presteneck Castle and caused great damage there. Hans Philipp survived the attack only seriously injured. His nephew Georg Schweikard von Gemmingen (1611–1681), who later belonged to Presteneck, was plundered again in the further course of the war. In the early 18th century, the brothers Johann Bernhard von Gemmingen (1656–1723) and Eberhard von Gemmingen (1674–1741) jointly administered the property; when the estate was divided in 1724, the property came to Eberhard.

The property remained in the hands of the line from Gemmingen to Presteneck until it died out in 1841. From the 1830s onwards, the castle was no longer inhabited by the family and was transferred to the family branch in Treschklingen and Michelfeld. The plant gradually fell into disrepair and was later sold by the heirs to the Stein community. Previously, the Prestenecker archive and the library were moved to Hornberg Castle and once again significantly expanded the extensive holdings that were already there. The castle, which is surrounded on all four sides by a moat, was renovated from 1976 to 1981 and is now used for residential and office purposes. There are still some historical farm buildings near the castle.

description

Coat of arms above the portal of the castle

The castle is a three-wing complex, the inner courtyard is closed off by a high wall with the main portal. The gables of the side wings on the portal side are designed as volute gables . At the main entrance and on the surrounded by a stone parapet moat leading stone arch bridge was once the court of the plant, nor the gatehouse and farm buildings have been preserved from the extended.

The main portal is crowned by an artfully designed coat of arms with scrollwork and figures. The coats of arms that were once on the board were probably those of Hans Walther von Gemmingen and his wife Agnes von Altdorf, but only the Gemmingen coat of arms remained. The right coat of arms was therefore left blank on the renovated panel of our time. The rectangular framing of the portal indicates that a wooden drawbridge once led across the moat in front of today's stone arch bridge . The two window openings in the wall above the portal stem from an old gallery running inside.

The three wings of the castle are each two-story and do not have a basement. The high and vaulted ground floors are made of rubble stones. The actual main building is the south wing to the right of the portal, which is deeper than the other wings and also has a shaped gable towards the rear, while the north wing ends in a round defense tower towards the rear. In the corner of the south and middle wing there is a stair tower with a half-timbered tower. The basement floors of all wings originally served as stables and utility rooms, while the living quarters were on the upper floors.

The gatehouse bears the dates 1582 and 1583 and dates from the time the castle was built. The adjoining barn dates from 1579 and is therefore the oldest building on the facility, dating back to the time it was bought by the von Gemmingen family. Two old stone heads are walled in in a younger barn, presumably from a previous medieval building.

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  Gatehouse

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  Farm buildings

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stocker 1895, pp. 173-176.
2. ↑ Stocker 1895, p. 181.
3. ↑ Stocker 1895, pp. 185/186.
4. ↑ Stocker 1895, pp. 188/189.
5. ↑ Stocker 1895, p. 196f.

literature

• Adolf von Oechelhäuser: The art monuments of the Grand Duchy of Baden (Volume 4,4): The art monuments of the districts of Mosbach and Eberbach , Tübingen 1906, pp. 151–156.
• Carl Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig Stocker : Family chronicle of the barons of Gemmingen , Heidelberg 1895.

Web links

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

• Presteneck Castle at badischewanderungen.de
• Bandhaus from Schloss Presteneck at bauforschung-bw.de

Coordinates: 49 ° 15 ′ 40 ″  N , 9 ° 17 ′ 58 ″  E