Schloss

Schloss Röthenbach stands in the village of the same name, part of Arzberg in Upper Franconia. A Renaissance palace built between 1559 and 1561, it replaced an earlier medieval seat recorded in 1389. The builder was Jobst Heinrich von Schirnding, whose marriage to Dorothea von Waldenfels is still visible above the tower portal in carved armorial stone. After the Schirnding line died out in 1819, the estate passed through Charlotte’s marriage to Ernst Freiherr von Waldenfels and has belonged to that family ever since. The h-shaped plan of the two-storey wings still shows the original moat line around the courtyard. At each corner of the upper floor, stone oriel windows rest on corbels, and the steep gables on all sides were added in the mid-19th century in a Romantic style. A round stair-tower at the junction of the wings carries the inscribed date and the couple’s coats of arms. The whole complex remains a private home and is not open to the public. Visitors therefore see only the exterior: the pale walls, the steep roofs, and the small heraldic plaque above the tower door. The surrounding village lanes and distant hills of the Fichtelgebirge frame the scene, giving a quiet impression of a place that has belonged to one family for nearly two centuries.