Schrecksbach Castle

The so-called Alte Burghaus, also known as Altes Schloss or Langenstein Castle Seat, is a castle house in Schrecksbach, the main town of the municipality of Schrecksbach in the Schwalm-Eder district in North Hesse.

The castle seat probably had a predecessor on the Schrecksbach hill (field name Gontzenburg), which is located approx. 1.2 km east of Schrecksbach.

The noble seat was built between 1580 and 1592 as the castle seat of the noble family von Langenstein called Gonzenrod, possibly as a replacement for an older castle seat previously inhabited on the Schrecksbach hill (field name Gontzenburg) 1.2 km east of the village. Since Schrecksbach became the southern border town of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel against the Landgraviate of Hesse-Marburg during the division of the Landgraviate of Hesse in 1567, the town was fortified in the following years with defensive structures and castle-like noble seats.

The castle house is also said to have been the center of a system of underground passages, which was built during this time and connected at least three of the four noble seats in the village. During the Thirty Years' War, this tunnel system is said to have saved the lives of villagers. On Christmas Day 1635, Croatian mercenaries of the Emperor invaded the village, plundered and set fire to it. A number of inhabitants are said to have saved themselves in the passages between the cellars of two castle seats, others fled into the crypt under the church, according to old traditions. The tunnel system, if such existed, has not been accessible for generations, but in the cellar of the Alte Burghaus, the entrances of at least three passages (or further cellar vaults) are still visible, framed with heavy sandstone blocks and bricked up with fieldstones.

After the extinction of the von Langenstein family, the castle seat with its associated land initially went to the landgrave's court master Ludwig von Harstall, then around 1715 to a branch of the Lords von Haxthausen. After the death of Elisabeth von Wrede, née von Haxthausen, the landgrave's chief official von Schreyvogel acquired the castle seat. In 1750, this included about 150 Cassel acres of land, about 50 acres of meadows, 17 acres of garden and 211 acres of forest, as well as the Losenmühle. In 1813, the estate complex was bought by the Lords von Marschall, divided in 1861 and sold to private owners.