Ringwallanlage Houbirg

The ring wall on the Houbirg includes a former Celt Settlement. It has a circumference of 4.5km. For comparison, the city wall around the old town of Nuremberg is 4km. This gives an idea of how big this settlement must have been, and what achievement has been made here without moving machinery this mass of material to do this plant. Several panels explain the historical context.
Some trails run phased on the crown of the ringwalls.

The ring wall on Houbirg is in an imposing condition. Several panels explain the historical context (see photo). Some hiking trails run in phases on the crown of the ringwalls, which is at least 4.5km long.

In the Hallstatt period and early La Tène period (about 500 BC to about 330 BC) was on this plateau a Celtic oppidum, of the remains of the wall and moat are still visible today. The facility is located on the mountain plateau in 486-617 meters altitude in a strategic location on the side valleys of the Pegnitz Valley. It was then one of the largest castles in southern Germany. Ceramic shards and bronze fibulae as well as glass beads were found from that time. The Houbirg was inhabited until about the turn of the century. After a long break, it was only then in late antiquity around 400 AD by Germans (probably Juthungen) populated. The facility is therefore also part of a series of hill-forts in the area to the right of the Rhine.

It is something special to hike on the preserved remains of the walls of the ramparts, some of which are still ten meters high. The ring wall goes around the area of the former Celtic settlement for a length of more than 4 kilometers. The rampart consists of a deep ditch ("Hunnenschlucht") with spring, foreland, spring, rock with wing wall, rock bastion, forest section, "Hüll" (water hole), quarries and 4 gates, well-made information boards with the corresponding explanations are in various places .

Hiking on a Celtic ring wall, how cool is that
The whole area has 85 ha, ⚔️

The trail runs on the very impressive altogether about 4.5 km long ring wall from Celtic time.

Very varied path, sometimes something other than a flat forest path

Climb through a beautiful mixed forest up to the "high rock". The climb requires some surefootedness in between. But is easy to handle at the beginning of the tour.

During ascent you pass the galleries of the Doggerwerke.
The Doggerstollen (also Doggerwerk called) is a tunnel system in the mountain floor of Houbirg. The tunnel was built in May 1944 to April 1945 by prisoners of the concentration camp Hersbruck, a subcamp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp, in forced labor. Here, for a planned underground factory, mission-critical aircraft engines were to be produced.
By the time of the American invasion, the plant had reached a length of 4.03 km. The tunnels are walled up today, locked and only with special permission to enter.

After this dark chapter of the story, we continue to "Houbirg," a pre-historic and early-historical hilltop settlement

Great path along the wall, lots of roots and stones.