Cultural heritage D-1-7738-0170 in Dorfen

Schloss Zeilhofen stands in the village of Zeilhofen, a part of Dorfen in Upper Bavaria’s Erding district. The site lies south of the Seebach stream, about 140 metres south-east of the local St Antonius of Padua church. Archaeologists classify it as a lowland castle ruin from the late Middle Ages and early modern period. The remains include traces of a former manor house, its farmyard, and the vanished Baroque garden. The whole complex is protected as a registered archaeological monument. The castle’s story begins with Peter Zeilhofer, land judge in Dorfen from 1363 to 1375. His son built the first wooden stronghold in 1420. In 1625 Tobias von Zeilhofen replaced it with a grand new stone residence. After his death the estate passed through several owners, including Seeligenthal Abbey and the merchant Georg Gugler from South Tyrol. In 1716 the Freising prince-bishop bought Zeilhofen and turned it into a Hofmark, a manorial village. That same year a gardener employed by the Guglers was executed after a witch trial. Today only grassy mounds and shallow ditches mark the vanished castle. Visitors walk across the quiet meadow where the main building once stood. The church of St Antonius of Padua remains in place, its spire rising above the fields. A few metres away the foundations of the Franciscan monastery, built in 1716 and demolished in 1802, can still be traced. The gentle landscape of farmland and small woods gives a sense of the site’s former importance without any modern buildings to distract the eye.