Liebenberg Castle (Ruin) (Zell)

The Liebenberg ruin is a castle ruin in a forest above the Töss Valley east of Kollbrunn in the municipality of Zell (ZH) in the canton of Zurich.

Liebenberg Castle was located on a prominent Nagelfluh rock. It consisted mainly of a tower and a residential building and was surrounded by a curtain wall. To the east, it was protected by a neck ditch. Today, apart from the remains of a foundation in the east, nothing of the castle is visible.

It is presumed that Liebenberg Castle was built around 1170, as Berthold Schenk von Liebenberg was the first so-called lord of the castle in 1180. The castle consisted of a residential building with a tower, surrounded by a curtain wall. It was later gifted to the Kyburgers, who in 1244 gifted it further to the Bishop of Strasbourg, only to receive it back as a fief. In a document from this period, Liebenberc et etiam Liebenberc refers to two castles with the same name.

A second such fortress named Liebenberg in Brand was located in the hamlet of Burg in the municipality of Mönchaltorf and was the seat of the Ministerialen von Liebenberg in the early 13th century. From 1293-1391, it was a St. Gall fief of the Giel von Glattburg (von Liebenberg) and then passed by purchase to the Habsburg-Austrian servants Gessler, who pledged it to the city of Zurich in 1408, where it remained until its destruction in the Old Zurich War in 1440 (foundation traces).

When the Kyburg family died out in 1264, the castle remained under Habsburg rule in the possession of the Lords of Liebenberg, until Berthold IV, the last male family representative, also died around 1300. A second line named Liebenberg probably arose when Berthold's sister, Ida, married a knight from Schlatt. This line also died out in 1357 with Gottfried III.

After that, there were various changes of ownership, mostly among local knights. In 1551, the already half-ruined castle belonged to the Council of Zurich. They used parts of the castle for new river fortifications of the wild Töss and for the construction of a new house.