Wasserburg Altenhausen

The Wasserburg Altenhausen stands on gently sloping meadowland north of the village of Altenhausen, near Schwäbisch Hall in Baden-Württemberg. The site once formed a roughly square island surrounded by water on three sides, with a wide ditch on the north. A small stream, the Otterbach, flowed along the southern edge, held back by a dam to create a lake that lapped against the southern ramparts. The fortress belonged in the 14th century to the Unmuß family, local nobles who took their name from the place. Records show Heinrich and Burkhard Unmuß acting as witnesses in royal charters, yet their ownership ended violently: in 1322 the town of Hall burned the water castle after a kinsman committed homicide and could not be found. By 1394 the ruins had passed to the Kleinkunz family, and later to the city of Hall itself, which turned the site into farmland and a fishery. Today the earthworks are faint but still traceable. A low mound marks the core keep, its southern edge dropping four metres into the old lake bed. A broad, shallow ditch separates this from the vanished outer ward, while the southern lake has long since been drained and built over. Only in the south-west corner do scraps of the surrounding ditch survive, hinting at the water-filled defences that once protected the noble residence.