Ruine Königswart

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Landkreis Freudenstadt

Perched at about 785 metres above the hamlet of Schönegründ, within the municipality of Baiersbronn, the Königswart ruin overlooks the Murg valley in the northern Black Forest. The site was rediscovered during roadworks on the route linking Schönegründ to Besenfeld and then excavated in 1974. A Latin inscription uncovered on that occasion states that Count Palatine Rudolf of Tübingen had the building erected in 1209 so that those who hunted here would remember him and pray for his soul. More than a simple hunting lodge, it may have been a memorial monument, set on the boundary of the lands of Reichenbach Abbey. Below the ruin lay the silver and copper mines of the Grube Königswart, recorded as early as 1488. The masonry was largely dismantled between 1828 and 1830; only the foundations survive, freely accessible and explained by an information board, on a popular hiking route.