Wohldenberg Castle
| Wohldenberg Castle | |
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| Sillium | |
Wohldenberg Castle, from left: Church, gate tower, gate and office house, corner tower
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 Wohldenberg Castle
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| Coordinates | 52°03′31″N 10°09′11″E / 52.05872°N 10.15311°ECoordinates: 52°03′31″N 10°09′11″E / 52.05872°N 10.15311°E |
| Type | hill castle |
| Code | DE-NI |
| Site information | |
| Condition | preserved or largely preserved |
| Garrison information | |
| Occupants | counts |
The Wohldenberg Castle is a ruin, located about one kilometer southwest of the small town Sillium. Sillium belongs to the municipality Holle in the district of Hildesheim (eastern Lower Saxony, Germany). Sillium’s emblem shows also the castle complex.
The Wohldenberg castle is a hill castle situated on the north western extensions of the Hainberg. It was built on top of a former offering stone to the pagan German deity Wodan on the 218 m high Wohldenberg, which is an elongate back of a mountain situated eastern as well as above the Nette valley. Because of strategic reasons the castle was built on a back of a mountain. The escarpments around the complex made it difficult to occupy. Here the northern entrance to the Ambergau was located and below the castle the trading route “Frankfurther Straße” with the route Hildesheim – Goslar crossed.
The castle area was separated into an outer bailey and main castle. Each had one inner yard, once there were even three of those inner yards. Still today the entrance to the bailey of the castle occurs by a gatehouse with a gate tower and a corner tower. Over the past moat spreads a bridge like driveway. In the upper part of the past main castle, which is not cognizable as this today anymore, is situated the 32 m high Bergfried. Other still existing buildings and ruins are parts of the up to 2 m thick enclosing wall and also the Catholic church St. Hubertus (1731), which was constructed baroque styled and arose from the former castle chapel.
Most likely the Wohldenberg castle was built by the count of Wöltingerode between 1153 and 1160. This process seemed to be associated with the territorial advance of this house into the Ambergau. Count Ludolf I made the Wohldenberg Castle his seat past 1174 after changing his ancestral seat in Wöltingerode into a Cistercians monastery, the monastery of Wöltingerode. Ludorf II yet called himself earl of Waldeberch in 1172. The following earls of Wöltingerode adopted more and more the name Wohldenberg. In the conflict between the emperor Frederick I called Barbossa and Henry the Lion the counts of the Wohldenberg were on the side of the emperor. For this reason the castle Wohldenberg was destroyed by Henry the Lion in 1180. Afterwards the castle was rebuilt and consequently the influence of the earls of Wohldenberg increased again. So Hermann von Wohldenberg got the Poppenburg as fief, after Conrad II, bishop of Hildesheim from 1221 – 1246, completed it as fortification.
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Wikipedia