Horrenburg Castle (Horrenburg)

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Landkreis Rhein-Neckar-Kreis

The Horrenburg, also known as Burg Horrenberg, was a small lowland castle in the village of Horrenberg, which has belonged to the municipality of Dielheim since 1972. It occupied a mound beside the road, at an altitude of about 160 m, above the marshy floor of the Leimbach valley. A "castellum Horemberg" is mentioned as early as 1184. The tower castle is said to have been built around 1220 by the local lords to protect the imperial road linking Speyer with Wimpfen and Nuremberg, as well as a toll station. In 1238 Dieter von Horrenberg appears, the first known member of a family of lesser nobility that died out in the 15th century. Before 1272, Bishop Henry of Leiningen acquired for the Bishopric of Speyer the Upper Bruhrain, which included the village and the castle. In the 14th and 15th centuries the fortress already seems to have been in ruins, and the texts speak only of an "old fortress". Today only a heap of rubble remains, and the mound is covered with recent houses.