Schloss Hainsbach

Schloss Hainsbach stood beside the parish church of St John the Baptist in the village of Hainsbach, now part of Geiselhöring in Lower Bavaria. A medieval water castle once occupied the site, first recorded in the 13th century when Wolfgang von Schierling held it as a fief of St Emmeram Abbey. The Wittelsbach dukes steadily extended their control, gaining the local vogt rights between 1229 and 1237. The present building was erected in 1609 under Abbot Hieronymus II, whose coat of arms was placed above the entrance. During the Thirty Years War Swedish troops plundered the castle in May 1632 and took refuge there again in 1704 when raiders tried to seize the provost’s judge. A vivid votive painting of 1704 shows the two-storey house with round corner towers and a moat crossed by a wooden bridge. Nothing of the structure remains above ground today. A brick granary built in 1783 and a barn attached to it survive beside the old castle mound. The surrounding fields and the church tower mark the place where the castle once stood.