Burg Hauneck

Burg Hauneck stands on the 524-metre Stoppelsberg in the Kuppenrhön, a volcanic ridge in the Hessian countryside. The summit castle was built from basalt blocks with white sandstone dressings taken from the nearby Lange Steine. Its thick ring wall still encloses the whole plateau, and parts of the buildings rise up to fifteen metres high. The fortress was first mentioned in 1397 when Hessian troops captured it from the knights of Haune. After repairs it became a Hessian court and administrative seat in 1409. A second destruction followed in 1469 during the Hessian Brothers’ War, when Hessen-Marburg forces besieged the rival Buchenau faction. The present ruins date largely from a late-15th-century rebuilding by the master builder Hans Jakob von Ettlingen. Visitors walk along the surviving ring wall and enter the south-eastern gatehouse with its double gateway. Inside, the rectangular keep offers a wide view across the Rhön hills. Beyond the gatehouse, the remains of the palas include a vaulted cellar and traces of the kitchen with its hearth base and flue. A narrow spiral stair once linked the kitchen to the great hall above. The courtyard also holds the remnants of the central keep and a small cistern.