Burg Horkheim

Burg Horkheim stands in the Heilbronn district of Horkheim, a water castle built in the 14th century. It sits in a low-lying area on the northern bend of the Neckar, west of the village centre. The oldest part is the four-storey stone tower, now sixteen metres high, which rises above the surrounding ground. A wide moat once surrounded the five-sided complex, crossed by a drawbridge. The tower’s upper floors show traces of medieval wall paintings and Hebrew inscriptions. The castle became a centre for Jewish life from the 17th to the 19th century. Jewish families lived in the residential tower and used part of it as a synagogue first recorded in 1725. By 1749 nineteen families, around ninety people, lived within the walls, many in newly built apartments. The community had its own cemetery in nearby Sontheim and the lane outside was once called Judengasse. Disputes with the local leaseholder led some families to move to Talheim in 1778, where they founded a new congregation. Today the stone tower and fragments of the surrounding walls remain. The moat survives in part as a dried garden, while the 16th-century half-timbered wing bears the builder’s coat of arms. Inside the tower, Gothic scrollwork and layers of whitewash cover the walls, and Renaissance-style painting appears on the second floor. The castle is hard to see from the village but forms a landmark when approached from the Neckar or the south-west.