Birkenfels Castle

Birkenfels Castle is a former medieval moated castle of the motte-and-bailey type, located near the road to Brünst in the southeast corner of Birkenfels (House No. 7), today a district of the market town of Flachslanden in the Ansbach district of Bavaria.

The castle was presumably built in the 13th century by the Lords of Birkenfels and first mentioned in 1275 as Burg Birchenfels with Bruno von Birkenfels in a document. After the Birkenfels family, who already lived in Lehrberg, lost their ancestral seat to the Counts of Hohenlohe in 1317, Apel von Seckendorff-Pfaff acquired Birkenfels Castle in 1399. In 1536, the last Birkenfelder died. In 1632, in the middle of the Thirty Years' War, the castle was plundered, ransacked, and destroyed by imperial troops.

Of the former castle complex, whose motte has been leveled and built over, only minor wall remains and a barrel-vaulted cellar in houses No. 6 and 7 still bear witness.