Wellheim Castle

Wellheim Castle
Burg Wellheim
Wellheim
The castle on the Jurassic rocks
Coordinates	48°49′13″N 11°04′49″E / 48.8203°N 11.0803°E / 48.8203; 11.0803Coordinates: 48°49′13″N 11°04′49″E / 48.8203°N 11.0803°E / 48.8203; 11.0803
Type	hill castle, built on rocks
Code	DE-BY
Site information
Condition	ruin
Site history
Built	12th century
Materials	rusticated ashlar, limestone, timber-framing

Wellheim Castle (German: Burg Wellheim) is a former fortification in Upper Bavaria (county of Eichstätt). The ruins of the old rock castle stand dominantly on Jurassic rocks above the market town of Wellheim in the ancient Danube valley (the Wellheim dry valley). It was abandoned in the 18th century and partially demolished.

The Romanesque upper bailey was built in a spectacular location on a wild, deeply clefted rock formation above the market town of Wellheim. Of its former palas and the other buildings of the main castle only parts of the exterior walls and enceinte remain. The palas was sited in the east, a balcony (Söller) linking it to a residential building in the south. In the north rises the mighty, quadratic tower of the bergfried, made of rusticated ashlar blocks with channelled joints. The roughly 35-metre-high tower is topped by a later, brick, upper storey (with round arch window openings) that once had a saddle roof. The original tower was topped by crenellations, that can still be made out from the stonework. The round arched, walled up elevated entrance is on the south side. Today the castle courtyard is filled with rubble to a depth of a metre and overgrown; formerly the entrance was about six metres about the level of the ground. The north wall had to be rebuilt in 1935, because many of the ashlars had been removed since 1836 for use as construction material. The walls are made of double-skinned limestone masonry with mortar and rock filling.