Thalheim Castle

The place name first appears in the urbarium of the Duke of Bavaria, compiled around 1275, with a mill in Thalheim. It belonged to the provostry of Bergen Monastery, which also held manorial rights in Gothelmshofen, which later merged into Thalheim. Shortly thereafter, vassals of the Schenken von Reicheneck, who exercised the Vogtship over the provostry, named themselves after both places. While Heinrich still called himself after Gothelmshofen in 1289 and belonged to the circle of the Schenken, Konrad von Thalheim appeared in 1304 as a castle guard or administrator for Count Gebhard von Hirschberg at Troßberg Castle near Pilsach. A Thalheimer of the same name was listed in the feoffment book of the Schenken von Reicheneck from about 1331 as a holder of fiefs. As early as 1322, a Heinrich von Thalheim appeared as a provincial of the Franciscans in Nuremberg, whom Eckard Lullies also assigns to the family.

A fortified seat under the family in Thalheim cannot yet be proven either archaeologically or by documents. Only a "paumgarten unnd sein gefaß" (perhaps an enclosure or a copyist's misspelling for "gesaß"?) appears as a fief of Konrad von Thalheim in 1331. In the late 14th century, when the Gothelmshofer-Thalheimer had long appeared as Nuremberg citizens, a hammer mill was finally established in the locality, which belonged to Hermann Holzhaymer in 1377. With the "hamer zu Talhaim" and the one in Haunritz, the Nuremberg mining entrepreneur Jobst Tetzel was a member of the Upper Palatinate Hammer Union in 1387, which he had significantly co-initiated. In 1391, the Bavarian dukes granted him various "freedoms" for his hammer at "Gotmannshofen," also called Thalheim, and for a Schenkstatt at "Goczmanshofen" which was held as a fief by the Landgraves of Leuchtenberg.

In 1418, Peter Tetzel, expressly the owner of the hammer in Thalheim, was enfeoffed with the Leuchtenberg inn. The hammer mill was granted in 1424 as a hereditary lease or tenancy to the master hammerman Peter Tyrol, who, with his wife Gerhaus, founded the church of St. Peter and Paul in Thalheim at that time. Even if these reports do not specifically mention a manor house near the hammer, its existence in the 15th century is to be assumed. It is finally attested in the report of the large-scale regional survey, which was ordered by the Nuremberg Council in 1504 before the outbreak of the Landshut War of Succession. Here, the seat and the hammer of the Sulzbach citizen Gilg Teurl are expressly recorded. Apparently, the estate had passed to the Teurl family in the late 15th century, who had maintained relations with the Tetzel family decades earlier. For example, Jobst Tetzel had sold proprietary rights to the hammer in Haunritz to Hans Teurl since 1463.

Presumably, the hammer estate passed to the Nuremberg citizen Anton Harsdorfer soon after the end of the Landshut War of Succession and the incorporation of Thalheim into the new imperial city's administrative district of Reicheneck, allegedly in 1506. He handed over the "castle" and hammer mill to his son-in-law Sebald Ketzel in 1516.

In 1527, Jakob Groland acquired "hammer mill and seat" for 1,100 guilders. This was followed in 1542 by Jörg von der Grün, in 1568 by Hans von der Grün, in 1595 by Hans Jacob von der Grün, whose daughter married Hans Sigmund II. von Preysing zu Lichtenegg und Haunritz, born in 1567, around 1600. In 1601, the son-in-law was first named as the owner of the hammer. Sigmund Gabriel Holzschuher bought the estate from him in 1621 for 8,500 guilders. In 1635, he witnessed it being attacked and torn down by Bavarian troops. However, it was rebuilt and remained in the possession of the Nuremberg patrician family until the beginning of the 20th century.

The Holzschuher hammer estate was first depicted in 1702 by an engraving by J. A. Boener. The unfortunately very simplified representation shows, in addition to the hammer driven by three water wheels, a manor house consisting of two buildings: a tower-like, solid or at least plastered manor house, which was surrounded by a wall, and a two-story annex, which perhaps served the hammer personnel. Only a few years after the engraving was made, the hammer estate was severely damaged by a flood in 1707, so that Sigmund Elias Holzschuher had the old buildings demolished and replaced with new ones. A new hammer castle was built on the site of the old seat according to plans by the Nuremberg regional master builder Johann Ulrich Mösel by the master mason Michael Vogel from Alfeld and the master carpenter Leonhard Zeumer from Fürnried. When the builder died in 1709, only the shell was finished. Under Karl Sigmund Holzschuher, the interior work was carried out by Nuremberg craftsmen from 1713 onwards. The work, including the construction of the solid enclosure, was not completed until 1720/21.

Two engravings by J. A. Delsenbach from 1718 attest to the already completed Baroque new building, whose appearance has been preserved to this day. The broad, two-story manor house has a hip roof, whose surfaces were structured with standing dormers, which were later replaced by shed dormers. A stair tower for access to the ground, upper, and attic floors was added in the middle of the south facade. Inside, the Holzschuher family furnished some representative rooms, including a large, hall-like room on the upper floor, with stucco ceilings, which, according to Schwemmer, show lively moving frame and band work. The other rooms mostly received plank ceilings. Two period-appropriate, green-glazed tiled stoves and Baroque two-panel doors with eared architraves have also been preserved.

After the incorporation of the imperial city territory into the young Kingdom of Bavaria in 1806 and the abolition of the Reicheneck administrative district, the hammer estate with its manorial rights came under the jurisdiction of the Hersbruck district court. The Holzschuher family, elevated to the rank of baron in 1819, was granted patrimonial jurisdiction of the 2nd class in the same year, which was redeemed by the Bavarian state in 1833.

In 1909, the Holzschuher family sold the castle to the Thalheim family Panzer, in whose possession it remains to this day. Shortly after extensive renovations in the years after 1999, the roof truss burned down in 2003; extinguishing water damaged the rooms below. Thanks to the great commitment of the Panzer family, the damage was repaired by 2006.