Wartenfels Castle (Ruin)

The Wartenfels castle ruin is a castle ruin on a hill called Wartenfels, east of the district of the same name in the market town of Presseck in the Bavarian district of Kulmbach. Only the remains of a round tower are preserved from the former complex.

The spur castle was built by Knight Reiwein von Wartenfels and his two sons Heinrich and Friedrich in 1327 with the consent of the Bamberg Bishop Heinrich II von Sternberg. In 1332, they received the economic means from Bishop Werntho von Bamberg to appoint a priest for their castle chapel and, in the 15th century, received further ecclesiastical rights in Wartenfels. An imperial immunity within a defined area around the castle was documented in 1421. The castle was destroyed in 1444 during the Waldenfels Feud and in 1525 during the Peasants' War.

In 1574, Hans Adam von Waldenfels sold the castle with its farms and estates to Wolf Dietrich von Wiesenthau (councilor and court master in Bamberg), who already four years later, in 1578, sold the manor to the Imperial Knight Lorenz von Guttenberg, which then came into the possession of the Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg in 1621.