Cultural heritage D-2-7344-0198 in Osterhofen

The remains of Schloss Oberndorf lie on the northern edge of Oberndorf, a village within the town of Osterhofen in Lower Bavaria. The site sits behind what was once a guesthouse, just east of the Weiherweg and north of the Hofmarkstraße. Archaeologists classify it as a medieval and early modern castle site, surrounded by a wide water-filled moat that once measured between five and fifteen metres across. The castle was first recorded in the late 13th century as the seat of the Ritter von Ysel, who held it until 1601. After passing through the hands of the Amsham zu Galgweis family, it was later owned by Ranshofen canons until secularisation in 1809. The Thirty Years’ War brought destruction in 1648, but a new four-storey palace was built in the late 17th century under Franz Adam von Amsham zu Galgweis. Michael Wening’s 1723 engraving shows a tower-like main building with a hipped roof, a southern oriel, and outworks that reached to the moat. Today the inner courtyard is levelled and grassed, its edges still showing the old moat and ramparts. The highest drop into the ditch is 4.5 metres on the north side, while the south edge retains a low flat dam about 0.3 metres high. On the east side a plateau 1.3 metres lower carries a modern farm building, marking where the outer defences once turned landwards. The vanished chapel, demolished in 1856, once stood outside the curtain wall, and the whole site offers a quiet green space that quietly recalls centuries of noble residence and war.