Cultural heritage D-3-6539-0152 in Nabburg

Nabburg’s Bodendenkmal marks the remains of a medieval castle once called Nappurch. It stood at the north-west corner of the town’s old defences, where the later Schloss Nabburg now rises. Archaeologists date the first stronghold to between 894 and 924, and King Heinrich the Fowler’s charter of 929 is the earliest written mention of the place. By the 11th and 12th centuries Nabburg had become an important residence of the Margraves of Schweinfurt and Diepoldinger. Their title, Marchia de Napurch, shows how central the site was to regional power. The castle passed to the Wittelsbach dukes in the late 13th century under Duke Ludwig the Stern. A second town wall was built after the Hussite raids of the 1420s, and the fortress served as the seat of a Wittelsbach district governor. By the 16th century the old stronghold had become a country estate, and in the 1500s a Renaissance palace was erected on its foundations. Architect Wolfgang Anton von Löwen remodelled the building in the 1750s, giving it the look it largely keeps today. Visitors walk through the Schloss courtyard and along the line of the vanished medieval curtain wall. The stone foundations of the original keep are still visible beneath protective paving. Nearby stands the Evangelical Lutheran church of St Laurentius, once the castle chapel. The surrounding town wall, rebuilt after the Hussite wars, encloses quiet lanes and small squares. From the upper terraces of the palace the view stretches across the Upper Palatinate countryside.