Ludwigseck Castle (Ersrode)

Ludwigseck Castle is a castle in the municipality of Ludwigsau in the North Hessian district of Hersfeld-Rotenburg. It was built as a castle at the beginning of the 15th century.

The castle is located between the Ludwigsau districts of Ersrode to the west-southwest and Beenhausen to the south-southeast, and the southern Alheimer district of Sterkelshausen to the north-northeast. West-southwest below the Schlossberg (approx.), a northwestern spur of the Dammskopf (), the highest elevation of the Neuenstein-Ludwigseck ridge in the Rotenburg-Ludwigseck Forest, it is situated on a partly wooded hill () sloping down into the Rohrbach's upper valley to the southwest. To the west of the castle, south of Sterkelshausen, runs Landesstraße 3253 with a nearby connection to the L 3254, which connects Ersrode and Beenhausen, and to the east originates the Strutbach, which flows as an Osterbach tributary along the L 3254 to Sterkelshausen. Approximately 200 m north of the castle is the basalt rock cliff Atzelstein ().

The castle was built at the instigation of Landgrave Ludwig I of Hesse by the knights and hereditary marshals of Röhrenfurth and the knights of Holzheim and completed in 1419. With the help of this fortification, the Landgrave increased pressure on Hersfeld Abbey. The Abbot of Hersfeld, Hermann II von Altenburg (1398-1418), had his hands tied by the political circumstances of the time, and could only resignedly state that the Landgrave had built this castle "on our foundation and property".

The aforementioned knightly families (originally endowed in the Melsungen area) received the area around the castle as a fief in 1419, until it partially changed to the fief of the Lords Riedesel zu Eisenbach from 1432 and completely from 1449. During this time, Hermann Riedesel also took over the office of hereditary marshal for the House of Hesse from the Röhrenfurths. Furthermore, Hermann Riedesel also acquired Lauterbach Castle and Eisenbach located there.

During the Thirty Years' War, Ludwigseck was partially destroyed and rebuilt as a castle around 1677. In the course of the 18th century, the castle again fell into disrepair and was made habitable again in the middle of the 19th century through the commitment of Ludwig and Wilhelmine Riedesel zu Eisenbach. The complex was renovated and rebuilt in 1856 in the Historicist style by the architect Hugo von Ritgen. Ludwigseck is one of the last fortified castles built in Germany.

Through inheritance, the castle came into the possession of the von und zu Gilsa family in the 1980s. They live on the estate today and are committed to the restoration and preservation of the castle. Today, the Riedesel or Gilsa families are listed with Ludwigseck Castle in the matricula of the Old Hessian Knighthood.

The complex is privately owned and cannot be visited.

On February 27, 2011, a 250-year-old outbuilding in the lower part of the castle, which had only recently been renovated, was almost completely destroyed in a fire.