Leonrod Castle

The moated castle was built in the 13th century as the ancestral seat and joint inheritance castle by the Lords of Leonrod, documented from 1218 and descended from the Lords of Buttendorf, to secure an important road connection to Nuremberg and was first explicitly mentioned in 1235 with a Rudolf "miles de Lewenrode". The Leonroders were originally imperial ministerials, but then entered the service of the Nuremberg burgraves towards the end of the 13th century. However, the castle itself was held as a fief from the Counts of Oettingen. It was a joint inheritance castle, parts of which temporarily fell into foreign hands, but were reunited under the Leonrod in the middle of the 15th century. Structural changes were made to the castle in the 14th and 16th centuries. The castle was spared from the Thirty Years' War, but shortly thereafter in 1651 it fell victim to a fire due to negligence and was not rebuilt. A hunting lodge was built in the 17th to 18th centuries. The castle is now owned by a community of heirs, which goes back to the noble family that died out in 1951. One of the members of the noble family was Franz Leopold Freiherr von Leonrod, who was Bishop of Eichstätt from 1867 to 1905 and was one of the most important bishops of the diocese.

The extensive castle complex lies on an eastward-facing spur of land. The outer bailey and main castle are each surrounded by a masonry, water-bearing neck ditch.