Schloss

The Schloss Alte Kemenate stands in Nagel, a village in the valley of the Rodach river in Upper Franconia. It is the last of ten medieval noble houses built along this stretch of water, once used for transport. The site includes a small park with ancient trees and a former farmhouse on the hill above. The castle began in 1419 as a fortified house owned by Michel von Schaumberg. In 1563 his descendants built a new residence higher on the slope, naming the old one the Alte Kemenate. The Redwitz family later joined both buildings with a wall and surrounded them with a moat. Water damage led to the demolition of the newer part in 1859, leaving only the three-storey lower house. Visitors see the grey stone cube of the Alte Kemenate with its three rows of windows and a simple door where a round tower once stood. Inside are vaulted ground-floor rooms. Outside, a mighty oak more than a thousand years old marks the northern edge of the grounds. Below the slope, the former farmyard still shows its 18th-century farmhouse and model stables from the mid-19th century.