Wellheim Castle (german: Burg Wellheim) is a former fortification in

Upper Bavaria Upper Bavaria (german: Oberbayern, ; ) is one of the seven administrative districts of Bavaria, Germany. Geography Upper Bavaria is located in the southern portion of Bavaria, and is centered on the city of Munich, both state capital and seat ...

(county of

Eichstätt Eichstätt () is a town in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany, and capital of the district of Eichstätt. It is located on the Altmühl river and has a population of around 13,000. Eichstätt is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese ...

). The

ruins Ruins () are the remains of a civilization's architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate ...

of the old

rock castle A rock castle (german: Felsenburg) is a type of medieval castle that directly incorporates natural rock outcrops into its defences to such an extent that the rock formations define the structure of the castle. Topographically, rock castles are cl ...

stand dominantly on Jurassic rocks above the market town of

Wellheim Wellheim is a municipality in the district of Eichstätt in Bavaria in Germany. It lies in the so-called "Urdonautal", the valley the Danube used some 300,000 years ago on its way to the Black Sea. Today a little river, the Schutter flows throu ...

in the ancient

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

valley (the Wellheim dry valley). It was abandoned in the 18th century and partially demolished.

Description

The Romanesque upper bailey was built in a spectacular location on a wild, deeply clefted rock formation above the market town of Wellheim. Of its former ''

palas A ''palas'' () is a German term for the imposing or prestigious building of a medieval '' Pfalz'' or castle that contained the great hall. Such buildings appeared during the Romanesque period (11th to 13th century) and, according to Thompson ...

'' and the other buildings of the main castle, only parts of the exterior walls and

enceinte Enceinte (from Latin incinctus: girdled, surrounded) is a French term that refers to the "main defensive enclosure of a fortification". For a castle, this is the main defensive line of wall towers and curtain walls enclosing the position. For ...

remain. The ''palas'' was sited in the east, a balcony (''Söller'') linking it to a residential building in the south. In the north rises the mighty, quadratic tower of the

bergfried ''Bergfried'' (plural: ''bergfriede''; English: ''belfry''; French: ''tour-beffroi''; Spanish: ''torre del homenaje'') is a tall tower that is typically found in castles of the Middle Ages in German-speaking countries and in countries under Germ ...

, made of rusticated

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

blocks with channelled joints. The roughly 35-metre-high tower is topped by a later, brick, upper storey (with

round arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vau ...

window openings) that once had a saddle roof. The original tower was topped by

crenellation A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

s, that can still be made out from the stonework. The round arched, walled up

elevated entrance An elevated entrance is a type of entrance, common in the design of medieval castles, that is not accessible from ground level, but lies at the level of an upper storey. The elevated entrance is the lowest and frequently the only way of ente ...

is on the south side. Today the castle courtyard is filled with rubble to a depth of a metre and overgrown; formerly the entrance was about six metres about the level of the ground. The north wall had to be rebuilt in 1935, because many of the ashlars had been removed since 1836 for use as construction material. The walls are made of double-skinned

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

masonry with mortar and rock filling. In 1857 an entire storey of the ''palas'' had to be demolished as it was in danger of collapse. The enceinte runs down the slope to ring the middle bailey. Here, too, there was once a smaller, quadrangular building of which only a few remnants have survived. Below that is the

lower bailey An outer bailey or outer ward is the defended outer enclosure of a castle.Friar, Stephen (2003). ''The Sutton Companion to Castles'', Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2003, p. 22. It protects the inner bailey and usually contains those ancillary buil ...

. The enceinte here appears to have been repaired several times. Outside a small tower enabled grazing fire to be brought to bear. The wall remains of the two small rooks near the gate were used as livestock sheds. Of the gateway itself only a gap in the wall remains today. In the 15th century, a ''zwinger'' was built in front of the lower ward. Its northern point was guarded by a

round tower A fortified tower (also defensive tower or castle tower or, in context, just tower) is one of the defensive structures used in fortifications, such as castles, along with curtain walls. Castle towers can have a variety of different shapes and fu ...

. The local road to Gammersfeld runs along the northwestern part of the external

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive ...

today. The moat is secured on the steep eastern hillside by a retaining wall, which was reinforced on the outer side by a square flanking tower.

Literature

* * Bert Braun: ''Chronik Marktgemeinde Wellheim'', Spardorf, 1981. * Heinz Mittel: ''Führer durch das Wellheimer Tal und seine Geschichte'', Ingolstadt, 1981. * Werner Meyer: ''Burgen in Oberbayern - Ein Handbuch von Werner Meyer''. Verlag Weidlich, Würzburg, 1986, , pp. 99-102. * Brun Appel, Rudolf Böhm: ''Burgen und Schlösser – Kreis Eichstätt im Naturpark Altmühltal''. Herausgegeben vom Landkreis Eichstätt, Hercynia Verlag, Kipfenberg, 1981, pp. 50-51.

External links

Artist's impression
by Wolfgang Braun

at burgenseite.de {{Authority control Castles in Bavaria Buildings and structures in Eichstätt (district) Hill castles