Aardeck Castle

Preserved from the former castle are remnants of the roughly rectangular curtain wall, which enclosed the entire plateau, as well as the ruin of the keep. This 21-meter-high keep, only about five meters in diameter and five stories high, however, has no staircase, so an ascent is not possible.

Details from a description of Ardeck Castle published in 1898:

“Rubble stone construction of basalt, with arches and vaults of slate. Built in an irregularly elongated basic shape on the summit of a basalt mountain. The enclosing walls, along with the round keep projecting from the southwest corner, are largely preserved. At the ends of the eastern narrow side, a round and a hexagonal corner tower, both half destroyed. Next to the latter, in a re-entrant angle of the southeast corner, the pointed-arched gate, above it a machicolation. Next to it in the courtyard, the beginning of a straight staircase that led to the hexagonal tower and to the battlements projecting over a round arch frieze. On the north side of the castle, inside, 4 large pointed-arch blind arches, in which irregularly distributed windows were located. Next to the keep in the courtyard, a cellar with a round-arched barrel vault. Above the second floor of the keep, a sharp-edged cross vault, above the uppermost floor also a vault and a round arch frieze.”

The name "Prince" or "Princess of Ardeck" was borne since 1876, by royal Prussian grant, by Princess Marie von Hanau, daughter of the last ruling Elector of Hesse, and her descendants from her marriage to Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Philippsthal.