Wasserburg Castle Ruin

En un regard

Le château en bref

The ruin of the Wasserburg, called Wassenburg in older texts, crowns a small hill about 630 metres high in the Hegau, some 1.5 km south-west of Honstetten, in the municipality of Eigeltingen. It overlooks the Wasserburg valley and the Wasserburgerhof farm. The fortress is linked to a family that bears its name, attested around 1174 and serving as ministerials of the Reichenau Abbey. It later passed to the lords of Hewen and then to the counts of Lupfen, who granted it as a fief to various nobles. In the fifteenth century, the vassal Veit von Asch used it as a base from which to attack merchants. In autumn 1441, during the Town War, the troops of the Swabian towns besieged it; Claranna von Reischach, wife of the absent lord, defended the place with a handful of men before obtaining the garrison's free withdrawal. The castle was taken and destroyed, and was never rebuilt; its stones were used for the neighbouring farm. On this private land, one can still make out an oval plateau, the moat and the levelled stump of the square keep.