Urnburg Castle

The Urnburg ruin, also known as Dalenburg, is the ruin of a hilltop castle on a wooded hill along district road K4711 between Rohrdorf and the L370 south of Rohrdorf in the Freudenstadt district in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

The Urnburg once belonged to the significant castles between Horb am Neckar and the Neckar bend. It was long the ancestral seat of a branch of the Lords of Weitingen. In 1381, Count Rudolf III of Hohenberg sold the property to Duke Leopold III of Austria. However, due to unredeemed pledges, Rudolf III's wife, Ida of Toggenburg, retained control of the lordship. The castle also temporarily served as her dower house. It was not until 1392 that Duke Leopold IV of Austria could exercise his right of redemption. The Urnburg lordship was repeatedly pledged by its Austrian owners.

At the end of the 14th century, the Urnburg became embroiled in the turmoil of the Cities' War and was unsuccessfully besieged by Margrave Bernhard of Baden. After some back and forth, the lordship came into the possession of the Württemberg Count Eberhard im Bart, after he had previously destroyed the castle itself by bombardment to the point of uninhabitability in a legal dispute in 1465. With financial support from King Maximilian I, the castle was rebuilt. When a disagreement arose with Duke Ulrich of Württemberg, he had the Urnburg plundered and burned down. Since then, the Urnburg served for a time as a granary, and in 1576 the ruin with its associated villages came back under Austrian rule, which Napoleon Bonaparte finally ended in the Peace of Pressburg in 1805. The castle ruin has since provided the Rohrdorf farmers with building material for their farms and was dismantled.
Only a roofed round tower remains of the former castle.