Solavers Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

The ruins of Solavers occupy a rocky spur whose flanks are almost vertical on three sides, above Seewis-Schmitten (Seewis im Prättigau, Grisons), on the path linking Grüsch and Seewis. The site was originally a church-castle (Kirchenkastell), probably from the early Middle Ages, organised around the church of Our Lady, mother church of the parishes of Seewis and Fanas. In the thirteenth century, the site belonged to the lords of Aspermont; following a division of their estates, their possessions in the Prättigau passed in 1344 to the counts of Toggenburg, who held the lower valley from Solavers and the upper valley from Castels. Friedrich VII of Toggenburg, the last of his line, is said to have been born there around 1370. The castle later passed to the Werdenbergs, then to Duke Sigismund of Austria. The church, abandoned after the Reformation, is mentioned only in 1487 as a dependency of the church at Seewis. Today a massive northern defensive wall, altered on several occasions, survives, along with parts of the walls of the Marienkirche; the site is freely accessible.