Burg Flyhöhe

The Burg Flyhöhe is a vanished motte-and-bailey castle lying in farmland and meadows about 1 200 metres south-east of Blaufelden’s Ulrichskirche. It stands on the gently sloping northern edge of the Tiefental valley where the Blaubach stream joins. The site is a low, almost circular mound surrounded by a wide water-filled ditch and an outer rampart.

Historians think the castle may have been built in the 11th or 12th century by local ministerials serving the Staufer emperors. Excavations in 1949 found sherds of 11th- to 14th-century pottery and traces of burning, suggesting a violent end perhaps during the 1449 war between the Swabian towns and the surrounding nobility. The name Flyhöhe probably comes from the Middle High German word for flint, reflecting the stony ground around the site.

Today the central mound is about two metres high and thirty-two metres across, still ringed by a ditch up to seven metres wide. A small dam on the north side gives access across the water. The outer rampart survives best on the southern side, rising to about one and a half metres. Trees grow on both the mound and the rampart, and a spring in the eastern ditch keeps the water level constant. The whole earthwork lies open in open fields, offering a quiet place to walk and imagine the vanished wooden tower that once stood on the flat summit.