Elgg Castle

The castle was originally built as a fortress and is located on an elevation in the south of the settlement. It was first mentioned in 1166 and was the seat of the Meier Elggs under the Abbey of St. Gallen until 1289. Until 1425, the Habsburgs held court here, before jurisdiction passed to the people of Zurich, who used the building for this purpose until 1798.

In 1576, the castle was acquired by the Zurich banner lord Hans Heinrich Lochmann, who rebuilt it in 1580 and expanded it into a castle. He died childless in Padua in 1590. The Augsburg patricians Hans Heinrich and Hans Ludwig Heinzel von Tägernstein acquired the castle, but had to sell it in 1599 through the two's mother-in-law, Frau Magdalena Neidhart. In that year, the imperial council Bonaventura Bodeck acquired the castle along with jurisdiction. He died in 1629 and was buried in Elgg. Through his son Melchior Bodeck, the castle was sold in 1637 to the governor Peter Sulzer of Winterthur. Sons of Peter Sulzer got into serious financial difficulties due to speculations and guarantees, so that the castle was in a precarious state in 1665.

With the help of a fictitious promissory note, the Abbot of St. Gallen managed to acquire possession of the castle. This sparked a long-standing dispute with the city of Zurich, which only ended in 1670 with the acquisition of the castle by Herkules von Salis-Marschlins, who was granted Zurich citizenship.

In 1712, the castle came into the possession of the Dutch Major General Felix Werdmüller. In his will in 1712, he stipulated that the castle and the lordship should remain in the possession of the Wertmüller family as an inalienable fideicommissum. It remains in the family's possession to this day.