Winzenburg Castle

The castle consisted of the main castle on a residential mound, a large courtyard, and the projecting pentagonal keep. It was a particularly strongly fortified fortress with a pointed oval layout measuring 200 m in length and 80 m in width. The main castle at the southwest end consisted of one or more residential buildings, a cistern, and a church. In the eastern part of the complex today are the remains of the pentagonal keep, which was built between 1130 and 1150. In 1230, the tower was raised by one story. On the former residential mound, the castle well has been reconstructed, which was a cistern. Water was brought up to the castle from the Apenteich springs below by donkey on the Eselssteig (Donkey Path). The springs fed the Apenteiche (Apen Ponds), which were created in 1220. The springs were a pagan cult area where sacrificial offerings approximately 5,000 years old were found.

When it was built in the mid-9th century, the castle was originally a ring fort. During the time of Hildesheim Bishop Otto I of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1260–1279), it was walled. The first major expansion took place in the 12th century.

The castle was first mentioned in a document in 1109, when Hermann I of Formbach received it as a fief from his uncle, Hildesheim Bishop Udo of Gleichen-Reinhausen, and named himself after it. He fell into dispute with his vassal Burchard I of Loccum over the latter's castle construction and had him murdered in 1130. As a result, Hermann I lost all his fiefs.