Vorderer Wartenberg Ruin

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Vorderer Wartenberg is the largest of the three castles of the Wartenberg, the hill overlooking Muttenz in the canton of Basel-Country. It occupies the rocky spur at the northern end of the ridge and covers an area of about one hundred metres long by thirty wide. The site has been frequented for a long time: traces date back to the Late Neolithic, the Bronze Age and the Roman period, and Carolingian sherds suggest the existence of a earlier structure predating the present castle. Mentioned in the thirteenth century, the castle comprised a curtain wall, towers, a cistern, a large building to the south-east and a gate preceded by a ramp, now restored in the form of a footbridge. A patch of masonry in the eastern wall may date from the repairs that followed the Basel earthquake of 1356. Like its neighbours, the castle was abandoned during the fifteenth century. The hill still served as a military observation post in the twentieth century, and a bunker survives within the enclosure. Maintained by the Gesellschaft pro Wartenberg, the ruin, open to the public, offers a panoramic terrace.