Cultural heritage D-5-6229-0048 in Burghaslach

Gleißenberg is a vanished water castle in the village of the same name, part of Burghaslach in Mittelfranken. It once stood on a meadow called Schlosswiese, about fifty metres north-east of the local Jakobus-Kirche. No trace of the buildings remains today, only the protected site marked by the Bavarian monument office. The first written mention of the place appears in Würzburg’s feudal register between 1303 and 1313. In the early 15th century the castle became a Brandenburg-Ansbach fief held by the Rieter family of Kornburg. By the 16th century it had passed through several owners to the von Grumbach family, who rebuilt it in 1658 after the Thirty Years’ War. The castle changed hands repeatedly in later centuries. After the death of Karl Christoph von Grumbach it was sold to Johann Ulrich von Dangrieß, then reverted to Brandenburg-Ansbach in 1754. The Counts of Castell acquired the estate in 1778. By 1853 the building had become so dilapidated that it was pulled down. A 1444 illustration shows a two-storey half-timbered house encircled by a wall and moat before the war. A later description from 1833 records a square structure with four wings standing in a broad water-filled ditch, linked to the village by a stone bridge and flanked by two round towers at the north wing. Today the site is an open grassy area where visitors can walk over the buried foundations. The only visible remains are the shallow depression of the old moat and the slight rise where the castle once stood. The meadow slopes gently towards the church, giving a quiet view across the surrounding farmland. A simple information board marks the protected area, explaining its history without any standing ruins. The place invites a short pause to imagine the vanished water castle that once dominated this corner of Mittelfranken.