Wieladingen Castle

The castle ruin Wieladingen, also called Harpolinger Schloss, is the ruin of a spur castle on a 540 m above sea level high mountain spur on the Lehnbach above the Murgtal near Wieladingen, a district of the municipality of Rickenbach, in the district of Waldshut in Baden-Württemberg.

The castle, built in the 12th century with bossed ashlar from the Upper Bunter Sandstone, belonged to the possessions of the Säckingen Monastery and is first mentioned in documents around 1260 as belonging to the Lords of Wieladingen. In a document from Abbess Anna von Säckingen concerning the hereditary fief of "Rheinsulz" (a farm near Laufenburg in today's Canton Aargau) issued on March 19, 1285, a knight Ulrich von Wieladingen "Vlricus miles de Wieladingen" is explicitly mentioned.

In the 15th century, the castle fell into disrepair.

The former castle complex still shows remains of a double gate and a palas. The 28-meter-high keep is still preserved.

The tower was overgrown with bushes, including a pine tree about 400 years old with a trunk diameter of about 35 cm. While this looked romantic, it was detrimental to the preservation of the complex. After an attached gate then fell down the steep slope, the need for renovation became obvious. Between 1984 and 1996, the remains of the ruin were secured by volunteers from the Förderkreis Burgruine Wieladingen association and the tower was made accessible. The Förderkreis continues to take care of the preservation of the complex.