Buchenbach Castle

Buchenbach Castle, also known as Schloss Buchenbach, Oberes Schloss, and Steinhaus, is a hillside castle located slightly above the village of Buchenbach in the municipality of Mulfingen in the Hohenlohe district (Baden-Württemberg).

The castle stands on a blunt and only slightly flattened eastern spur of the lower slope at the transition from the Buchenbach gorge into the Jagst valley. The stream flows through the village at the foot of the castle, emptying about 200 meters further downstream and approximately 35 meters below it from the left into the river, over which a road bridge leads to its more accessible right bank upstream. About 200 meters southeast of the castle, the church of the small village stands slightly lower on the opposite slope of the lower Buchenbach gorge, through which a road climbs up to the Hohenlohe plain.

The castle was built in the 11th century by the Buchenbach family, mentioned since 1098, who are presumably of the same lineage as the Lords of Stetten. In 1340, the castle is mentioned in a sales document from Gernot von Stetten to the Lords of Bächlingen. According to an inscription from 1356, the castle, with its integrated keep, was built by Rüdiger von Bächlingen and modified to its current form in the 15th century. Rezzo, the last of the Bächlingen, handed over his share in 1403 for a life annuity to the Hohenlohe, who, however, sold Buchenbach to Zürch von Stetten in 1418. In 1974, the castle was sold by Baron Dr. Sigurd von Stetten to Baron Johannes Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels, who extensively restored the castle complex and sold it in 1981 to a Stuttgart merchant.