Grauenstein

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Grauenstein is a former earthwork and timber fortification, now reduced to a mound cut by ditches, on a wooded spur in the municipality of Madiswil, in the Bernese Oberaargau. It stands at about 629 m above sea level, some 400 metres from the larger Burgstelle of Weiersköpfli, which is reached by a hiking trail. The structure is a motte-and-bailey type of castle mound: an oval platform measuring roughly 30 by 13 m, separated from the neighbouring plateau by an artificial ditch about 6 m deep, doubled on the west by a second ditch and a bank. No written source mentions the site, whose original name remains unexplained, and the 1930 excavation yielded nothing decisive. Like its neighbour, it probably dates from the central Middle Ages and was raised by a local noble family; its builders may be connected with the Alemannic lineage that gave its name to Madiswil, mentioned as early as 795, but this is only a hypothesis. The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland lists the Grauenstein's "Wehranlage" among the oldest evidence of fortification in the municipality, without dating it. The site is today a small archaeological site with free access, useful for understanding the timber and earthwork military architecture of the region.