Burgstall Scharfenberg

Burgstall Scharfenberg stands on a rocky spur of the Scharfenberg hill in Ursensollen, part of the Hirschwald nature park. The site was once the stronghold of the Scharfenberg family, a medieval noble house that burned down Kastl Abbey in 1217. Archaeologists still list it as a medieval castle ruin under the Bavarian monument code D-3-6636-0042. The castle was built about 1200 as the family’s main seat and destroyed soon after the arson. By the mid-16th century chroniclers described it as a ruin. Traces remain of the square keep, seven metres on each side with two-metre-thick walls, and the defensive ditch around the spur. Visitors walk up a north-western ridge to the spur and find low stone foundations and the hollow of the ditch. The view stretches over the wooded Hirschwald and down to Ursensollen’s parish church of St Vitus. Nearby lie other castle sites such as the ruins of Zant and the remains of Bärenfall and Hausberg.