Heuchlingen Castle and Mill

Well-preserved complex with a four-storey main building (stone house), outbuildings and a high tower that enclose the inner courtyard, as well as outbuildings, a defensive wall, round towers and bastions around the outer courtyard. The whole complex gives a good impression of Renaissance castle architecture.

At this point you have to be careful at the end of the cycle path because there is a road right there where the cars are not exactly slow to arrive. Brake - look at the castle and then the cars will also be through 😉

A castle was probably built in Huchelheim in the 12th century. It was first mentioned in 1222, along with the mill below it. The nobleman Henricus de Huchelheim was named as the lord of the castle. Although the Huchelheim family, who held the castle as a fief of the Imperial Abbey of Ellwangen, did not die out until after 1530, they no longer held any property in Heuchlingen by 1330. As numerous documents show, the Abbey of Ellwangen subsequently granted the castle and its estates in Heuchlingen to various noblemen from the surrounding area, including the Lords of Bieringen, the Grecken of Kochendorf, the Lords of Wittstatt, the Lords of Gosheim, and the Capplers of Oedheim. The castle had become a joint heir's castle. During the City War of 1449/50, part of the castle complex and the mill were devastated and set on fire by citizens of the Free Imperial City of Wimpfen. When the Teutonic Order took over rule in the region in 1484, Heuchlingen also came under their ownership in the following years. At the beginning of the 16th century, the castle became the seat of a sub-office within the Oberamt Gundelsheim, a position it would retain for around 300 years. Heuchlingen Castle was destroyed in the Peasants' War of 1525. In 1530, under the Teutonic and Grand Master Walter von Cronberg, it was rebuilt in the style of a Renaissance palace. In the mid-18th century, extensive renovations took place, giving Heuchlingen Castle its current appearance. In 1806, the first King of Württemberg, Frederick I, acquired Heuchlingen Castle and all its rights. Today, it is the center of an approximately 100-hectare agricultural estate.