Schloss Waiblingen

Schloss Waiblingen once stood on the eastern edge of the old town, on a ridge above the Rems valley. The upper courtyard sat above a stepped slope, with the lower courtyard and wine store below. A 19th-century map still shows this layout, though the site is now covered by the modern town hall and its square. The castle first appears in records between 1291 and 1297 after an earlier fort was destroyed in fighting with the royal governor. It served as a base for officials managing the Waiblingen district, and sometimes as a brief residence for the Württemberg family. Documents from 1350 list the castle’s lands: over three hundred hectares of fields and meadows made the Württembergs the largest landowners in the town. Count Eberhard IV died here in 1419, and his children Anna, Ulrich and Ludwig were probably born in Waiblingen. Repairs around 1420 produced a new building called the ‘new castle’ in a 1428 deed. After Württemberg was reunited in the late 15th century, the castle lost its importance as a ruling seat. The last major work took place under Duke Christoph between 1559 and 1564. By 1628 it comprised an Amtshaus, granary, cellar and stables. A great fire in 1634 left only a plain rectangular block, twenty-one metres long and fourteen wide, with walls up to one metre thick. Only fragments survive today: part of the vaulted cellar, restored in 2001 and used for events, and small sections of the old walls. The rest of the site now holds the town hall and market square, but the old layout can still be traced beneath the paving.