Burg Pfarrköpfchen

Burg Pfarrköpfchen stands on a narrow ridge above the old town of Stromberg in the Hunsrück. Known in its day as the Alte Stromburg, the ruin crowns a steep spur called the Pfarrköpfchen. It overlooks the Soonwald forest and the surrounding countryside. The site was first recognised in the 1980s when archaeologists from Mainz uncovered the remains. Excavations showed that this was the original Stromburg, built in the mid-eleventh century. By the early thirteenth century the fortress had been moved to the Schlossberg across the valley. The fortress is important because it was once a royal castle. In 1090 Archbishop Ruthard of Mainz recorded a count named Bertholfus as a witness to a charter, the earliest secure mention of Stromburg. In 1116 Emperor Henry V wrote to the citizens of Mainz complaining that Archbishop Adalbert of Saarbrücken had destroyed ‘our’ Stromburg. The excavations proved that the Alte Stromburg was abandoned when the new castle was built on the opposite hilltop. By the fourteenth century it was already called the ‘old castle’ and soon faded from memory. Visitors today walk over grassy terraces that once held the chapel and long buildings of the outer ward. The main stronghold sits on the narrow summit, a single great hall with walls more than two metres thick. At its eastern end a pointed spur projects forward, giving the hall a sharp prow-like front. On the south-east corner stands the small romanesque chapel, its four square columns dividing the interior into nine bays. The central bay once held a restored mosaic of a rosette, now displayed in Stromberg’s local museum. Below the ridge a former limestone quarry has removed part of the western end, but fragments of another building survive along the cliffs.