Burg Etzgerode

Burg Etzgerode stands in a shallow hollow at 260 metres above sea level between the villages of Momberg and Speckswinkel. It once belonged to the lords of Momberg in the 14th century. Later the Hirzenhain family held it, possibly through inheritance. In 1434 Adolf von Hirzenhain pledged the castle to Landgrave Heinrich I of Hesse. By 1572 the place was already described as deserted. A nearly nine-metre square tower with battlements survived into the 16th or early 18th century. A 1734 map still shows the tower. The ruins were said to be visible in the first half of the 19th century. Rudolf Knappe suggests that the ponds nearby may be the remains of the old water-filled ditches. Recent lidar scans point to a roughly square earthwork north of the ponds where the K15 road crosses the Ganswiesengraben. Today a farmhouse stands on the western edge of the site. It dates from the late 17th or early 18th century and may mark the last traces of the vanished village of Eczenrode. The castle is believed to have fallen into disrepair when the settlement was abandoned.