Burg Steinheim

The Burg Steinheim stands on a hill called the Schlossbuckel above the deep Otterbachtal valley near Steinheim an der Murr. It was the second castle built by the Lords of Steinheim, replacing an earlier one on the Burgberg a few hundred metres away. The new castle was raised before the old one was destroyed late in the High Middle Ages. A small settlement called Sigebotsbůch once lay nearby, but it has vanished. The site sits within the former Gewann Löhern near the Lehrhof estate. The only written record of the castle comes from a 1269 deed naming Berthold von Blankenstein and his wife Elisabeth as its builders. Their names appear alongside the Lehrhof, probably a farm that served the fortress. Local historian Hans Dietl believed the new castle was built at least ten years before 1269. After the couple’s deaths around 1280 the castle fell out of use. A 1553 document still mentions a noblewoman living on the old Plankenstein site near the Lehrhof. Legends tell of robber knights, a lonely castellan who later entered a convent, and a hidden treasure guarded by a fearsome dog. Today only grassy banks and faint foundations remain where the round bergfried, gatehouse and hall once stood. A 1593 engraving by Georg Gadner shows these ruins still partly intact. By 1686 the remains had vanished from maps, though 19th-century records mention surviving ditches and walls. The Lehrhof farm still occupies the lower slopes, and the Otterbachtal below offers quiet walks through the valley.