The Château du Grand Ringelstein (or Château Ringelsbourg) is a ruined

castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...

in the '' commune'' of

Oberhaslach Oberhaslach is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. Population See also * Niederhaslach, a neighbouring commune * Communes of the Bas-Rhin department The following is a list of the 514 communes of t ...

in the

Bas-Rhin Bas-Rhin () is a department in Alsace which is a part of the Grand Est region of France. The name means 'Lower Rhine', referring to its lower altitude among the two French Rhine departments: it is downstream of the Haut-Rhin (Upper Rhine) de ...

département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. There are a total of 101 ...

'' of France. Dating from the beginning of the 13th century, it is built around several

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

rocks at an altitude of 644 m. At the summit of the rocks there are only meagre remains of buildings, including the remnants of a pentagonal

keep A keep is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residen ...

in the north, the most accessible part of the site. By contrast, the polygonal

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 positio ...

that surrounds the group of rocks is still well-preserved, particularly on the south west side, where one can see several small fully arched openings. Owned by the Eguisheims, the site was recorded in the middle of the 12th century. After the extinction of the family, it passed to the

Bishop of Strasbourg Archbishops

*Charles Amarin Brand (16 July 1984 – 23 October 1997) (with rank of archbishop from 1988) *Joseph Doré (23 October 1997 – 25 August 2006) *Jean-Pierre Grallet (21 April 2007 – 18 February 2017) *Luc Ravel (18 February 2017 ...

. A haunt of brigand knights, it was destroyed in 1470. It has been listed since 1898 as a ''

monument historique () is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. It may also refer to the state procedure in France by which national heritage protection is extended to a building, a specific part of a building, a collection of buildings, ...

'' by the

French Ministry of Culture The Ministry of Culture () is the ministry (government department), ministry of the Government of France in charge of List of museums in France, national museums and the . Its goal is to maintain the French identity through the promotion and pro ...

and is state-owned.

References

External links

*
Official website of d'Oberhaslach
Ruined castles in Bas-Rhin Monuments historiques of Bas-Rhin {{France-castle-stub