Schloss Pleinfeld

The Alte Vogteischloss stands in the centre of Pleinfeld, a market town in Mittelfranken. It occupies a small rise behind the Nikolauskirche on the Kirchenplatz, 382 metres above sea level. The building is also known locally as the Klostervogtei, the Altes Schloss, the Hohes Haus or simply the Kloster. Its present address covers two adjoining town houses, numbers 1 and 3. The complex is listed as a Bavarian monument under the code D-5-77-161-15. The castle began as a medieval two-storeyed structure with two wings. It first appears in records in 1136 as the property of the lords of Pleinfeld. The Bishop of Eichstätt took it over in 1435 and turned it into an administrative office. In the 17th and 18th centuries the building was remodelled. Later uses included a girls’ school, a doctor’s house, flats for engineers building the Ludwig-Süd-Nord railway in the 19th century, a Protestant prayer room, a district court and a teacher-training college from 1866 to 1880. After the Second World War it housed refugees and bombed-out townsfolk. Today the Schloss houses Pleinfeld’s public library and a local history and brewing museum. A modern multi-generation centre shares the same site. The former monastery garden, now called the Schlossgarten, lies just behind the building. In the garden stands the Tauben-Brunnen, a fountain with medieval motifs erected during the castle’s restoration to honour the local pigeon-fanciers’ club and other associations. A fountain on the Schlossplatz itself commemorates Wolfram von Eschenbach, whose family is thought to have come from Pleinfeld.