Schloss Wetzhausen

Schloss Wetzhausen stands in the village of Wetzhausen, part of the town of Stadtlauringen in Lower Franconia. It began as a water castle in the 14th century and became the ancestral seat of the Truchsesse von Wetzhausen family. During the German Peasants’ War the original fortress was ruined, then rebuilt in the 17th century using surviving medieval sections. Four stone wings, each four storeys high, form a square around a central courtyard. A tall rectangular oriel projects from the front wall between two round corner towers, its windows framed by late-Gothic blind tracery. The building’s outward appearance still shows the scars and repairs of the 16th and 17th centuries. Inside, the vaulted cellars and the spiral staircases in the towers survive from the medieval core. The oriel’s upper rooms once served as a small private chapel, its walls lined with painted panels. Across the courtyard, a single-storey gatehouse carries the family coat of arms above the archway. Visitors walk through the arched gateway into the quiet courtyard. The four wings enclose a small paved space where lime trees cast dappled shade in summer. From the top of the staircases, views stretch over the surrounding Franconian countryside. The rear wing contains a single exhibition room with photographs and documents about the Truchsesse family and the castle’s history. Outside, the moat has been filled in, but its line is still marked by a low embankment and a row of mature willows.