Battenberg Castle
Encyclopedia
Battenberg, Rhineland-Palatinate
Battenberg is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.- Location :...
in Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
Location
The castle stands on a promontory of the Haardt range of sandstone hills which rises abruptly from the Rhine Plain on the north-eastern edge of the Palatinate Forest. Together with the small village of the same name, immediately to the west, it is situated at an elevation of 300m above sea level, above the right bank of the Eckbach.Below the castle, emerging from the ochre-coloured rock bordering the winding approach road, can be seen the so-called "Blitzroehren" (literally "Lightning tubes"), though these are not true fulgurites caused by lightning, but columns of hard, iron-rich mineral exposed by erosion of the softer sandstone.
History
It is presumed that the castle was constructed by Graf Friedrich III. von Leiningen (d.1287), and it remained a possession of the House of Leiningen- until 1689, when it was destroyed during the War of the Palatine Succession. Together with Neuleiningen castle on the opposite bank, 1400 metres to the north, it controlled access to the Eckbach valley. To the south-east, 5 km. upstream, stands the Leiningen family seat of Altleiningen.Structures
On three sides the outer walls of the castle follow the top of the steep crags. The wall on the fourth side was protected by a ditch, now completely filled in. Surviving structures include; the outer walls, a gate tower, an artillery tower with embrasure, and the vaulted undercroft and foundations of a large dwelling. This incorporated an external staircase-tower, erected in the 16th century, which still stands.The ruins are in private ownership but there is limited public access. A visit is repaid with views across the Rhine Plain, the Bergstrasse and the Odenwald.