Oedenberg Castle

In a document sealed by Bishop Konrad of Eichstätt in 1166, a ministerialis "Chonrad de Ödenburc" is mentioned among numerous witnesses. Whether there is a connection to Oedenberg is uncertain. The Oedenberg family first appears in 1312, but by this time they had already lost the place that gave them their name. For in 1304, Konrad Pfinzing had the previous fiefs in Unterdeutenbach (near Stein) appropriated by the Bishop of Eichstätt and, in return, offered his "allodial" estates in Oedenberg as a fief to the Prince-Bishopric of Eichstätt, which then asserted its feudal rights until the end of the Old Empire.

Further owners after the Pfinzing family are traceable as the Vorchtel family from around 1384 to 1446, and before 1449, the Paumgartner family. The latter sold Oedenberg for 600 Gulden to the Groland family around 1489/90, who held the estate until their extinction in 1720. As early as 1489, there is mention of planned construction work on the Groland family's "residence," which they made available to the city of Nuremberg in 1518 in case of war. After its destruction in the Second Margrave War in 1553, the castle, whose value (including the associated estates) was estimated at 2,000 Gulden, remained a ruin. According to an 18th-century description, the old Groland castle had a cellar and a stone plinth, which "were still quite preserved in the ruins."

For their administrator, possibly also for their own stay in Oedenberg, the Groland family erected a small, two-story half-timbered building measuring 9.15 x 4.5 meters on the preserved stone curtain wall of the castle facing the village. The simple building consisted of a bedroom and living room on the ground floor, and a living room, "Söllerlein" (hallway), and kitchen on the upper floor. It later served as a tenant's house, was demolished in 1769, and rebuilt in stone.

With the extinction of the Groland family in 1720, the hamlet with the seat reverted to the Prince-Bishopric of Eichstätt, whose Bishop Johann Anton I. Knebel von Katzenellnbogen initially transferred the fief to his own family. In 1730, Jobst Wilhelm Ebner followed, who immediately requested permission from the Nuremberg council "to restore the old manor house, ruined in wartime... to a habitable condition." The current manor house was built as early as 1731, probably largely on the foundations of the previous building. The almost square, three-story building, with side lengths of 9.90 by 11.10 meters, was built entirely of stone and has three window axes on each side. On the front and back of the hip roof, there is a dormer with gables. A spacious staircase provides access to the two upper floors. On the first floor, there was a living room, kitchen, and chambers, and on the second, a small representative hall. Above the portal on the south side, the builder had his family's coat of arms and that of his wife Maria Sophia Nützel's family affixed, along with the year 1731.

In 1790/92, a Vogt's house, five estates, an inn, two small houses, and a shepherd's house were listed as appurtenances of the Ebner family's manor. In 1853, Regina Ebner von Eschenbach, widow of Paul Sigmund Wilhelm Ebner, sold the castle estate to Sigmund Häffner, a spice merchant from Rückersdorf. Ownership changed rapidly in the following decade and finally passed to the Fensel family from Kalchreuth in 1865, who operated a forge on the ground floor and established an inn on the first floor in 1892. After the death of master blacksmith Georg Fensel in 1945, the craft was abandoned, the inn was moved to the ground floor, and in 1968, it was expanded with a new building. The inn with an attached butcher shop in the former manor house is now in its sixth generation of ownership by the Fensel family.