Balgheim Castle

The local nobility of Balgheim appears in documents until around 1500. The Lords of Balgheim were vassals of the Counts of Hohenberg and later of the House of Austria, playing an important role in the region. The Imperial City of Rottweil held local lordship from 1420 to 1689. Afterwards, the local lords changed frequently. First, it was the Streit von Immendingen, then the von Rost and the von Hornstein, until finally in 1789 the village passed to the noble house of Waldburg-Zeil-Trauchburg.

The sovereign rights were disputed between Austria and the respective local lordship until the beginning of the 19th century. In 1806, the town, with all sovereign rights, passed to Württemberg. Until 1938, Balgheim belonged to the Oberamt Spaichingen, then to the district of Tuttlingen.

The castle, over 300 years old in its current form, still hints at its former glory and has frequently changed owners throughout its history. In the 16th century, we encounter Lazarus von Suntheim, from 1529 the Gut von Sulz; in 1546, a Vogt of Balgheim is mentioned. From 1540, the Imperial City of Rottweil and the Rottweil patrician family Möck were the castle lords, and from the early 18th century, the noble house of Waldburg-Zeil-Trauchburg. Since the end of the 17th century, the local lords were also the castle owners. Prince Konstantin von Waldburg-Zeil-Trauchburg sold all his property in the Balgheim district in the mid-19th century. In 1857, the castle was acquired by the Association for the Establishment of an Employment Institution for Neglected Children of Catholic Denomination. A few years later, a factory was set up in the castle building. Today, after extensive recent renovation, it is used as a residential and commercial building and is privately owned. The castle, together with the Church of the Assumption of Mary, built between 1702 and 1709, the town hall building from the early 19th century, and the so-called "Rentamt," a stately administrative building with a tithe barn, forms an impressive historic town center.