Schloss Heringnohe

Schloss Heringnohe stands in the village of Heringnohe, part of the town of Vilseck in the Upper Palatinate region of Bavaria. It lies close to the Grafenwöhr military training area and is protected as a historic monument. The building was once a hammer mill powered by the Wiesennohe stream, a tributary of the Vils. Early records call the place Hargenoe or Horgnau. The site includes both the main castle and a separate servants’ house built of sandstone. The castle’s history goes back to the 14th century, when it belonged to Bamberg bishops and ironworks owners such as Hans Hegner and Albrecht Frank. The Portner family expanded the hammer mill in the 16th century before losing it during the Thirty Years’ War. Later owners included the Graf family, who divided the estate among their sons, and the von Lindenfels family in the 19th century. The Götz family bought the property in 1931 and still run an inn there today. Today the castle is a three-storey plastered stone building with a low hip roof, built about 1530. Inside, several rooms contain yellow-glazed stoves from the classical period. A small Catholic chapel, St Laurentius, is attached to the south-east corner. Nearby stands the two-storey servants’ house with its own slate roof and string courses. The whole complex shows how a former ironworks evolved into a country estate over the centuries.