Cultural heritage D-2-7037-0168 in Kelheim

Schloss Kapfelberg stands beside the Danube in the village of Kapfelberg, a district of Kelheim in Lower Bavaria. The castle sits on the northern bank of the river, just west of the parish church of St Maria Immaculata. It is protected as a historic monument and listed under two numbers in the Bavarian heritage registers. One entry covers the standing buildings, the other the buried remains of the medieval castle beneath them. The site shows how a fortress from the 12th century became a Baroque residence three centuries later. The castle’s history begins in 1114 when the bishops of Bamberg and Regensburg recorded the place as Chapelberch. The first stone castle was probably built by Heinrich von Kapfelberg, mentioned only in 1255. After changing hands several times, the estate passed to the monastery of the Holy Cross in Regensburg in 1334 for thirty pounds of Regensburg pennies. Later owners included the Lodron and Seiboldsdorf families, and in 1807 it was sold to the lawyer Michael von Gäsler. The present building dates from about 1700, though it was altered in 1912. The castle is a plain three-storey rectangle with a steep gable and seven window axes. Inside, parts of the old corner towers survive, and three vaulted cellar rooms remain. Historic tiled stoves, plaster ceilings, wall paintings and original stone floors can still be seen. Beside the house stands a single-storey farm building with a wide-eaved roof, and a park of about one and a half hectares surrounds the whole. The ensemble is now on the market, its medieval foundations and Baroque fabric offering a quiet glimpse of Lower Bavaria’s layered past.