Schloss Jettenhofen

Schloss Jettenhofen stands in the northern part of Jettenhofen, a village in the Upper Palatinate region of Bavaria. It began as a medieval castle first recorded in 1245 and 1248. The site was once divided between a fief of Eichstätt and freehold property. Over the centuries it passed through several noble families, including the Uttenhofers, Seckendorffers, and Schenken von Geyern. In 1562 Rudolf von Hirnheim built the still-standing two-storey residential wing. After the Hirnheimers died out in 1585, the bishop of Eichstätt turned the castle into an administrative centre and grain store. The castle once occupied an almost oval island surrounded by a deep, wide moat with a drawbridge at a gatehouse. The moat is now dry, and only parts of the enclosing wall remain. One of the two round towers survives, having served as a sheep barn around 1800. Beside the residential wing stands a three-storey granary with high gables and a pitched roof. A vanished gate tower once stood across the moat. Johann Kaspar Bundschuh described the moat in 1801 as deep, surrounded by an earthen rampart and very marshy because of springs within it. Visitors today find the two-storey residential wing built in 1562 and the granary with its steep roof and tall gables. Remains of the curtain wall and one round tower can still be seen. The site lies in a quiet, wooded corner of the Upper Palatinate uplands. The surrounding countryside includes meadows and small woods that once formed part of the castle’s estate. The vanished chapel and gate tower add to the sense of a place where history is still visible in stone and earth.