Castle Old Blumberg

Burg Alt-Blumberg stands on a hill 675 metres above sea level, overlooking the Wutachtal valley in the Black Forest. The site rises sharply above the valley floor, its steep slopes forming a natural defence to the south-west. To the north and east, marshy highland and later fishponds blocked easy access except along a single guarded road. The castle’s builders chose this spot deliberately, not for a village but for its commanding position over the Schaffhausen–Hüfingen route. The lords of Blumberg held the fortress as ministeriales of the counts of Freiburg and Fürstenberg, later becoming trusted men of Count Rudolf of Habsburg. In 1260 the name ‘Blumberg’ first appears in writing when Johannes von Blumberg witnessed an act at Paradies Nunnery near Constance. By 1292 the family controlled a network of castles—Blumenfeld, Blumegg, Donaueschingen, Stahlegg and Tannegg—spreading their influence across southern Baar, the western edge of Hegau and the Wutach gorge. Today only fragments remain: sections of retaining walls and the lowered neck ditch that once separated the main castle from its outer ward. A modern information board at the western tip shows how the site grew from a simple 13th-century stronghold into a fortified settlement. The original bailey housed a mill and workshops, while the later town developed just beyond the outer defences. Visitors walk grassy slopes where the outlines of walls and ditches are still faintly visible, tracing the outline of a place that once guarded an important medieval road.