Alteburg, Schotten

The Alteburg stands in the Alteburgpark on the edge of Schotten in the Vogelsbergkreis. It was once a water-filled fortress built on an artificial mound fed by the Nidda river. The site began as a ring-wall settlement in the Hallstatt period, before becoming a medieval castle around the year 1000. The castle guarded a key route that crossed the Vogelsberg heights along the Nidda valley. In 1382 the Rhine Towns League destroyed it, and it was never rebuilt. Tilemann von Günderrode, chancellor to Landgrave Philipp I of Hesse, later received the ruins and surrounding lands. His son Wilhelm cleared the old stonework in about 1605 and erected a large timber house with a pitched roof as a dowager’s residence. The circular water moat, still fed by the Nidda, remains around the well-preserved timber building. The Alteburgpark, laid out by the town of Schotten, surrounds the moat and opens to the river and the B276 road. Visitors walk the tree-lined paths beside the water and view the old moat and the remaining sections of the mound. The park offers a quiet place to see traces of the medieval fortress and the later manor house.