Schloss Kilchberg

Schloss Kilchberg stands beside the River Neckar in the Tübingen district of Baden-Württemberg. It began as a medieval water fortress in the 13th century and was rebuilt in the 15th to 18th centuries. The Lescher knights once held the stronghold, and their coat of arms still marks the village today.

The castle’s octagonal core survives from Staufer times, one of very few such keeps in Europe. Georg von Ehingen raised a late-Gothic stone house above these foundations late in the 15th century. In the 16th century further wings were added, giving the present outline. A century later the Leutrum von Ertingen family laid out a Baroque garden with an orangery and a lower palace.

The castle remains in private hands and is not open to the public. Within the park, however, the orangery may be hired for events. The architect Paul Schmitthenner lived here for several years after the Second World War.