Unterschüpf Castle

In 1561, Knight Albrecht von Rosenberg (1518-1572) built the original castle. After a financial settlement, he relinquished his Boxberg lordship to the Count Palatine and chose Unterschüpf as his new domicile. In 1572, Albrecht died in Vienna without direct descendants. His castle passed by purchase to the related lines of von Leyen and von Dienheim. In 1610, Albrecht Christoph and Georg Sigmund von Rosenberg – of the Waldmannshofen and Haldenbergstetten lines respectively – acquired the castle from the Dienheims for a considerable 26,000 guilders. They then largely demolished it and rebuilt it in its current form as a moated castle with wide moats and a drawbridge at the main portal. After the Rosenberg line died out in 1640, Kurmainz granted its fiefs to the Counts of Hatzfeld. The Counts also acquired the castle, which they later assigned as a fief to the Würzburg Abbey. In the course of the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Counts established an independent parish in 1672, using the castle hall as a place of worship, where masses were celebrated until 1956.

In 1728, the moated castle narrowly escaped the great fire on March 10, after which "... 120 small and larger buildings lay in ruins." With Cajetan von Hatzfeld, this line died out in 1794. The community, after the reversion of the Kurmainz and Würzburg fiefs, thus became the seat of the Kurmainz bailiwick of Schüpf as well as the Würzburg office of Schüpf.

In 1808, the Prince of Leiningen acquired the castle. In 1830, the moats were filled in after frequent complaints from the community and citizens. In 1837, the wealthy Unterschüpf citizen Leonhard Westfeld (Westfeld House) and his brother-in-law Georg Banzer acquired the castle. The municipality of Unterschüpf bought the building from the Westfeld family in 1874 for 11,615 guilders, for the purpose of establishing a non-denominational community elementary school and, above all, as the new seat of the municipal administration. In 1905, the Commercial Further Education School for students from the Schüpf area was opened. This school was dissolved again in 1934, while the agricultural vocational school existed until 1957. After the construction of the Catholic Church of St. Kilian in 1957, the castle hall was converted into a gymnasium and put to its new use. In 1972, the previously independent municipality of Unterschüpf was incorporated into the town of Boxberg. The castle thus lost its function as the town hall. The elementary school, which was still in the building at that time, was also dissolved. In 1974, Sparkasse Unterschüpf renovated its now expanded premises in the basement, before finding other accommodation in Unterschüpf in 1987.

In 1978, the necessary repair measures on the northern side of the roof began by the town of Boxberg, after building experts determined that significant parts of the castle were in a very dilapidated or ruinous condition. However, since no usage concept was available, the financial basis for a meaningful overall renovation was lacking. In 1982, District Administrator Georg Denzer suggested to Mayor Franz Zipperle to install the speech therapy school of the Main-Tauber district in the castle instead of a new building. In 1983, the district council of the Main-Tauber district decided on December 19, with the Boxberg town council joining, to carry out the conversion according to the plans of district building master Hermann Vogt. This secured the preservation of the outstanding architectural monument in the Schüpf area.

In 1988, the official inauguration took place on January 15 by Minister of Culture Mayer-Vorfelder, combined with a village festival with the participation of local associations.