The remains of the Castle can be visited
CastleFreiburg im Breisgau
Kybfelsen Castle
The castle on the Kybfelsen is a lost spur castle in the area of the independent city of Freiburg im Breisgau in Baden-Württemberg.
The meager remains of Kybfelsen Castle lie 820.8 m above sea level on a ridge between the present-day Freiburg districts of Günterstal and Kappel. About 2 kilometers from Günterstal Monastery and approximately 500 meters above the valley, the castle site rises on a freely visible, steep gneiss rock. Today a popular excursion destination, the castle site offers a wide panoramic view, which extends from the Feldberg to the Schönberg in the west, to the Schauinsland in the south, into the Kappler Tal and far into the Breisgau Bay.
A spur castle on the Kybfelsen is mentioned in the chronicle of Matthias von Neuenburg from the mid-14th century. The name "Kyburg" first appears in 1484 in the Weistum of Kappel. Finds from excavations at the castle site in the 1920s by O. Kantorowicz prove the existence of the complex already during the Zähringer rule in Breisgau in the late 11th or early 12th century. Ceramic finds, which can be dated to the 12th and early 13th centuries, complete the view of the period of use of the fortified site. Recent surface finds also point to an early, at least temporary, Bronze Age settlement of the rock. There is no reliable information on the exact founding period or the builders or owners of the castle. A connection with the Counts of Kyburg, whose centers of power were in today's northern and eastern Switzerland, is now considered questionable. Based on the available finds, the end of the castle is assumed to be in the first half of the 13th century.
Description+
The small castle complex rose on two rocks connected by a narrow ridge. From the northern rock head to the slightly flatter elevation in the south, it extended over a length of about 70 meters, reaching its maximum width of about 30 meters in the south. On this southern access side, it was protected by a wide wall, of which only minimal remains are visible in the ground. On the east side, it was bordered by a so-called "Ostbau" (east building), which is no longer verifiable today. In the southwest, it leaned against the rising rock face, which ends in an artificially leveled, platform-like area on the spur tip. Foundation traces and a re-erected section of wall here indicate a possibly tower-like structure, referred to as "Südturm" (south tower) in Kantorowicz's 1929 ground plan. The narrow connecting ridge to the northern rock head was flanked on the west side by a long section of wall, which was still clearly visible in the 1920s, but now seems to have completely disintegrated. On the east side, the natural rock fall was probably sufficient for protection; there is no evidence for the existence of an east wall. Remains of masonry have been preserved mainly on the northern rock head. At its highest point, traces of an 8-meter-wide tower stump with masonry up to 2 meters thick can still be seen. In front of it is a 12-meter-deep and 3.5-meter-wide natural rock crevice with an artificially hewn sole, which obviously served as a neck ditch.
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Source: Wikipedia · Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kybfelsen_Burg_04.JPG
This description draws on the facts documented in the linked Wikipedia article; Wikipedia content is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Wording and editing: Mobile History.
Location: 47.9607, 7.8850