Burg Alt-Bartenstein

Burg Alt-Bartenstein stands on a narrow ridge 452 metres above sea level where the Eselsbach flows more than thirty metres below. The spur is pinched between two small streams, the Kalkofenbach and the Riedbach, on the eastern side. It lies just under one kilometre south-west of the centre of Riedbach, a district of Schrozberg in the Schwäbisch Hall district. The ruins occupy the tip of a gently sloping spur that rises from the surrounding farmland. The site commands wide views over the gentle hills of the Hohenlohe plain. Built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the small stone castle was abandoned and fell into ruin between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Its defences once enclosed three sides with earthen ramparts and ditches, parts of which still trace faint lines across the ground. Archaeologists have recorded the foundations of a rectangular tower and traces of a surrounding wall. The layout shows how the builders used the natural spur to reduce the work of fortification. Visitors today walk a quiet farm track that leads to the spur’s tip. The ramparts and ditches are easiest to see where the track bends around the northern edge. A low bank of earth and a shallow hollow mark the line of the old outer ditch. The ground inside the enclosure is uneven, showing where buildings once stood. From the ridge there are long views across fields and woodland towards the distant Franconian Heights.