Château de Kintzheim
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Kintzheim castle ruins from the southeast
Castle Kintzheim ( Kinzheim, French Château de Kintzheim ) is a medieval castle in the Vosges in Alsace. It belongs to the municipality of Kintzheim (department of Bas- Rhin).
Location
Kintzheim castle located west of the village Kintzheim on a low mountain spur called Schlossberg in 260 meters height at the edge of the mountain. Accessible is the ruin of a short walk from a large visitor car park at the entrance to Hohkönigsburg. The castle is open only in the summer season, the entrance is free of charge.
History
Kintzheim castle is first mentioned in 1270 as castrum Kunegesheim. The early Gothic tracery windows indicate a construction around 1250. They first belonged to the lords of Rathsamhausen. After several changes of ownership ( expansion in 1480 by Caspar von Mörsberg ) they fell in 1492 to the city Schlettstadt. The damaged during the Thirty Years' War, in 1649 castle became privately owned again. By 1740, it was inhabited by a hermit. After the French Revolution began their decline. 1876 took place larger renovations, but only in 1965 the ruins were declared a national monument.
Plant
The core of well-preserved castle has the outline of a little shifted, 35 by 20 meters large rectangle. Behind a deep moat cover a 15 -meter high curtain wall and a centrally abutting, 27 meters high round donjon the western wing. As an architectural feature of repulsive to the donjon, 5.5 meter wide section of the curtain wall is high out to its tip, so that the result for the tower on the upper floors of the unusual floor plan of a keyhole. On the south and east sides are two residential wings, on the north wall is the late Gothic chapel of St James. Striking are also the four meter thick southern extension of the shield wall with casemates and a main gate covering a square corner tower, both dating from the late 15th century. The sprawling outer ward is largely leveled. Today it serves as a space for the Birds of Prey aviaries and flight demonstrations.
Birds of Prey
Since 1968 Castle Kintzheim seat of the lively Greifvogelwarte Volerie des Aigles.