Cultural heritage D-2-7238-0052 in Neufahrn in Niederbayern

Schloss Hofendorf stands in Neufahrn in Niederbayern as a vanished medieval and early modern site. It once occupied a small island surrounded by a seven-metre-wide moat fed by the Kleine Laber. The square island measured twenty-five metres along each side and lay about five hundred metres south-west of St Andreas parish church. The whole complex has long since been levelled to meadowland. Aerial maps still show the vanished moat as a shallow depression in the grass. The site began as a castle in the 12th century when the Schaumburg-Wolfstein family held the land for the Eppenstein dukes. In 1104 and 1122 the brothers Heinrich and Odalrich appear in the Wolnzach donation book styled ‘of Scornpurch’. After the family died out in 1260, the Wittelsbach dukes took over the estate. Local records also call it the seat of the Schmalenstein family. Today the field gives no hint of walls or towers. A low rise marks the former island’s centre where buildings once stood. Visitors walk across open grass where the moat once reflected the sky. The quiet spot lies beside the river junction, its only sounds the wind and birdsong.