Friedberg Castle (Ruin) (Meilen)

The ruin lies in a small depression above the municipality. On the west and south sides, the terrain drops steeply into the gorge of the village stream. To the east, a natural small ditch formerly separated the castle plateau from the nearby hamlet. The plateau was approximately fifty meters long and about thirty meters wide.

To the north, a moat has been partially excavated. It was carved out of the sandstone to a width of about ten meters and a depth of about four meters, and features almost vertical embankments. Thick deposits of sand and lake chalk indicate that water was impounded in the moat.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the castle area and moats were leveled and used for agriculture, so that only a few wall remnants remained on the gorge side. Based on foundations, the course of a curtain wall could be traced in the lakeside part; its further course is uncertain. Inside the complex, excavations revealed no traces of walls. A 28.64 m deep draw well was filled to the brim with rubble when it was discovered in 1976. It was excavated by hand, and the wellhead was rebuilt.

Between 1976 and 1979, the vanished walls were uncovered and extensive excavations were carried out. In addition to stove tiles, pottery shards, spindle whorls, fittings, and arrowheads, such as those found in other castle complexes, wooden everyday utensils, well-preserved leather pieces, two small copper ladles, and a crooked wooden horn, about 60 cm long, from the first half of the 14th century, which is considered one of the oldest wind instruments in Switzerland, were found here.

Not much is known about the history of the castle. Archaeological finds suggest that it was built around 1200. In the 13th century, large areas of the right bank of Lake Zurich were under the administration of the Regensbergers; in 1306, Lütold VII von Regensberg referred to Friedberg as 'our castle'. Later, the Regensbergers probably sold Friedberg for financial reasons to the wealthy knight Götz Mülner von Zurich, who called himself Mülner von Friedberg in 1321.

The accumulation of finds from the first half of the 14th century suggests that the castle was expanded under the new lords. Later, they gave up their seat in Meilen and later also sold the vogtei rights.

Around 1390, the Zurich citizen Jakob Bletscher bought the castle; whether he ever inhabited it is not known. In any case, its gradual decay seems to have already begun at that time. Since 1593, the castle area, together with the neighboring farmstead, has been in private ownership.