Burg Lantershofen

Burg Lantershofen stands above the lower Ahr valley in Lantershofen, a village in the Ahrweiler district of northern Rhineland-Palatinate. It is one of the oldest Frankish settlements on the left bank of the Ahr. The site shows traces of earlier Roman walls beneath the medieval structure. The castle first appears in records on 1 July 1019, when Emperor Heinrich II granted the estate to Michelsberg Abbey near Bamberg. In 1372 the Archbishop of Cologne, Friedrich III of Saarwerden, captured and destroyed the fortress. Four years later a new castle was built nearby by Gerhard von Blankart, whose family held the land until the male line died out in 1712. During the Thirty Years War the Swedes damaged it in 1632, and marauders finished the job in 1672. After long inheritance disputes the estate passed to the Wickenburg family and in 1915 to Friedrich Langen from Cologne. In 1939 the Apostolate of Priests and Religious Orders bought it and turned it into a seminary. Visitors now find a 1708 manor house that serves as Studienhaus St. Lambert, a house of studies for priests. The building mixes old stonework with later renovations carried out under Pfarrer August Dörner. The surrounding village preserves the Fronplatz beside the church, recalling the feudal dues once paid to the Blankarts. From the terrace there are views across the Ahr valley and the vineyards that line its slopes.