Burg Neuhewen

Burg Neuhewen stands on the Neuhewen hill at 863.9 metres above sea level, north of Stetten in Engen. The ruin is the highest castle site in the Hegau region. It was built in the 13th century by the Lords of Engen and later passed to Habsburg. By the 14th century it became a pledge of the Counts of Hohenberg. The Lords of Reischach held it from 1375 until the early 16th century. The castle was destroyed in 1639 during the Thirty Years’ War by Bavarian troops. In 1661 the Fürstenberg family acquired the ruins, followed by the Ebinger family in 1671, and finally Fürstenberg again in 1751. Today the site remains in private ownership and is not developed for tourism. Visitors find only overgrown remains of the main castle’s trapezoidal walls. The eleven-metre-high bergfried still stands with three-metre-thick walls. An eight-metre-wide ditch separates the main castle from the shield-shaped forecourt, about 75 metres long and 30 metres wide. To the west, ruins of multi-storey buildings lean against the ring wall, showing fragments of Romanesque and Gothic windows. The entire hilltop offers wide views across the Hegau landscape.