Château de Stoerenbourg is a ruined castle in the commune of

Husseren-Wesserling Husseren-Wesserling (german: Hüsseren-Wesserling) is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. Points of interest * Parc de Wesserling See also * Communes of the Haut-Rhin département The following is a lis ...

, close to the village

Mitzach Mitzach ( or ) is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. See also * Communes of the Haut-Rhin département The following is a list of the 366 communes of the French department of Haut-Rhin. The communes ...

, in the department of

Haut-Rhin Haut-Rhin (, ; Alsatian: ''Owerelsàss'' or '; german: Oberelsass, ) is a department in the Grand Est region of France, bordering both Germany and Switzerland. It is named after the river Rhine. Its name means ''Upper Rhine''. Haut-Rhin is the ...

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

, France. The castle was destroyed in 1637, and very little remains of it.

Toponymy

The Stoerenbourg takes its name from that of the family who lived there: the Stoer of Stoerenbourg.

History

Castle was built in 1395. It was built by the

Abbey of Murbach Murbach Abbey (french: Abbaye de Murbach) was a famous Benedictine monastery in Murbach, southern Alsace, in a valley at the foot of the Grand Ballon in the Vosges. The monastery was founded in 727 by Eberhard, Count of Alsace, and established a ...

to supervise the passage of the pass of Bussang. Until 1576, the castle was called "Waldstein".It then takes the name of a family dedicated to the abbey, Stoer Stoerenbourg. These will become one of the most powerful families in Upper Alsace. The castle then passes into the hands of the Freundstein Waldner. It was razed in 1637 during the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...

Location

The castle is located in a forest area on a hill west of the village of Mitzach, although dependent on the territory of

. Access to Stoerenbourg is on foot using a path from the current Domaine de Stoerenbourg. It is a private property.

Architecture

There are very few remains of the implanted castle: a low wall at the end of the five-meter deep fault dug by hands to separate the rock, in two parts, as well as scree covered by vegetation.

References

Ruined castles in Haut-Rhin {{Alsace-castle-stub