Schloss Ritzing

Schloss Ritzing stands beside the village of Ritzing in Kirchdorf am Inn, a quiet corner of Lower Bavaria. The building began as a medieval water fortress, traces of which survive in buried earthworks west of the village. By the 18th century it had become a simple three-storey manor with a pitched roof, surrounded by farm buildings and a wooden fence. The castle’s long story is told through the families who held it. In the 16th century the Brandstetters owned the seat, later passing to the Stängls, who exercised low justice until their non-noble heirs lost the privilege in 1723. The Prielmayrs then acquired the estate and added a brewery at Simbach am Inn. In 1740 the Berchems bought the whole complex and created a strict entailed estate to keep it intact. Today the core of the building remains high-medieval, with rough tufa walls rising through two storeys and brick above. A later two-storey wing with a hipped roof, probably from the 18th century, extends to the east. The setting is still rural, the old farmyard spaces now quiet gardens, and the low ridge of the original motte can still be traced beside the stream.