Krähberg Castle (Ober-Sensbach)

Already mentioned in 795 in the "Lorsch Codex" as "Crawinberk", the Krähberg was the southern border point of Einhard's Mark Michelstadt. Just below the 555 m high mountain peak lies the Krähberg Hunting Lodge, which Count Albert zu Erbach-Fürstenau had built between 1761-71, a regularly laid out late Baroque building complex. In the middle of a carré with four square pavilions of shingled half-timbering with mansard roofs, which served as kitchen, administrator's house and servants' quarters, stands the manor house, a two-story plastered building, a simple structure whose ornamentation consists of a round-arched portal with a representative stair landing, corner quoins and segmental arched windows with ashlar surrounds. The noble proportions of the building are impaired by the loss of the mansard roof (today a tent roof). Extensive restoration work has recently taken place. The castle district includes a modest 19th-century farmyard with a kitchen building (1823), stable, coach house (formerly with a chapel), a 26 m deep draw well, as well as an octagonal, bark-clad tea house, which the Erbach architect Wendt built above the castle in 1813, and the "Achtbuchen" forester's house, built in 1841, a shingled half-timbered building with a classically designed dormer and half-hipped roof. Outside the castle area finally stands an 18th-century forest barn, a large quarry stone building with corner quoins and a half-hipped roof.