Burg Kräheneck

Burg Kräheneck stands on the Kirchberg hill, 375 metres above sea level, between the Ammer and Kocher valleys in the village of Reusten. The site once held a five-sided medieval stronghold built by the counts of Nagold and later Tübingen. It began as an Alemannic refuge fortification before becoming the seat of the lords of Kräheneck between about 1000 and 1200. The counts of Hildrizhausen-Kräheneck held the castle next, and Hugo, Graf von Kräheneck, appears in records around 1037. Excavations by the University of Tübingen between 1921 and 1929 revealed the remains of a spur castle protected on three sides by steep slopes. A single approach crossed an outer and inner ditch on the fourth side. Visitors today see low earthen ramparts and shallow ditch lines cutting across the hilltop. A roughly twenty-metre-long wall, still half a metre high in places, marks the probable outer defence line. Further ramparts once ran along the steep south-west slope, though part of them was quarried away. The route to the site follows these old earthworks past the village cemetery, giving a clear sense of the fortress’s layout.