Hammerschloss Hirschbach

The origin of the manor house at the hammer mill of Oberhirschbach, which is documented as early as the 14th century, has not yet been clarified. In the Upper Palatinate hammer union of 1387, the hammer mill appears in the possession of Conradt Suntleuttner. It is possible that the moated house, in the form of a residential tower secured by a wide moat, already existed at this time. Allegedly even before 1424, i.e., before he bought the Rothenbruck hammer mill, the Sulzbach mining entrepreneur Erasmus Sauerzapf acquired the Hirschbach hammer mill, which he sold in 1442 to his similarly active relative Jacob Sauerzapf.

During the First Margrave War, the hammer mill was captured and burned down by Nuremberg foot soldiers on June 23, 1450. The damaged hammer lord Jacob Sauerzapf survived this period and in 1460 was granted lower jurisdiction over the subjects living on the Oberhirschbach hammer estate. Subsequent owners based their claim to manorial rights on this privilege. As early as 1458, Sauerzapff had obtained permission to have masses read in his castle chapel, which he had built, because the way to the parish church in Eschenbach was too far for him.

In 1472, he handed Hirschbach over to his son Erasmus Sauerzapf; in 1491, the latter sold the hammer estate with the manor house and the chapel to the Nuremberg citizen Sebolt Peringsdorfer and his son-in-law Jobst II. Haller. A copper smelting plant is said to have been established at the hammer mill at this time. Both had also bought the nearby Hauseck Castle from the hammer lord Jörg Petz von Lauf at that time. In the feud of Christoph von Giech against the imperial city of Nuremberg, the smelter "together with the burgher's house" was incinerated in 1499. That the seat with the works existed (again) in 1504 and was in Nuremberg hands is evident from the reconnaissance of the landscape around Nuremberg, which the council had carried out before the outbreak of the Landshut War of Succession. Jobst Haller died in 1505; his son of the same name remained in possession of the hammer mill in Oberhirschbach "with moats, Zwinger walls and with the hammer hut" even after selling Hauseck Castle; he leased the hammer mill "as it is enclosed by the wall" (but not the manor house) in 1520 to Georg Pfinzing zu Haunritz. In 1524, he had the judicial rights confirmed once again, but these were ceded to the new imperial city's administrative office of Velden in 1529, according to the contractual agreements between the Palatinate and Nuremberg. Only a mill property was excluded and was subject to Palatinate-Sulzbach jurisdiction because it lay beyond the recognized border stream.

According to the records of the Nuremberg chronicler Johannes Müllner, Jobst Haller was followed as owner by other Nuremberg families who were active in the mining business, initially Hanns III. Ebner, born in 1482, one of the most important members of the old Nuremberg family. He had already married into Eschenbach from the Harsdorfers in 1508, was in possession of Hirschbach in 1529, and took over the monopoly in the Bohemian copper business in 1530, so that at times all copper imports from Bohemia were delivered to Enzendorf and Hirschbach. In the Second Margrave War, the margravial mercenaries set fire to the seat with the hammer mill on May 27, 1552, the same day as Hauseck Castle. In the course of the reconstruction, the residential tower-like structure with the half-timbered upper floors on the older massive base floor, which still exists today, was probably built around 1560.

The Ebners, who were ultimately indebted, were followed as owners around 1585 by their creditor Georg Meindel, who was already in dispute with a neighbor over a newly laid water pipe in 1587. In 1588, he quarreled with the church patron Wilhelm Ebner von Eschenbach because he had set up a white lead smelter in the chapel of the hammer estate. Meindel's daughter Katharina married the Nuremberg patrician Georg Christoph Gugel in 1597. He took over the hammer estate in 1603 from his brothers-in-law Georg the Younger and Konrad Meindel, who died in 1612 and were still named as owners in 1602. Before 1624, Adam Waldstromer acquired the property; in 1664/66, it then passed to Johann Friedrich von Wimpffen, who died in tower imprisonment in Nuremberg in 1668 due to embezzlement. In 1699, Georg Abraham, Johann Christoph, and Johann Carl von Wimpffen sold the Hirschbach hammer lord's seat to Friedrich Wilhelm Ebner von Eschenbach, so that the seat came into the possession of the Ebner family for the second time.

After the death of Friedrich Wilhelm on June 3, 1711, his sons Johann Wilhelm and Jobst Wilhelm Ebner inherited the manor house. When Johann Wilhelm died as early as 1723, his inheritance fell to his brother. Jobst Wilhelm Sr. died only on July 5, 1755, and left Hirschbach to his son of the same name, who, however, died young on May 20, 1763. In 1765, Hirschbach already belonged to the Hieronymus Wilhelm Ebner Family Foundation, which was administered around 1800 by Johann Sigmund Haller von Hallerstein. After the legal abolition of the entailed estates, the Hirschbach hammer estate with Artelshofen was sold in 1816 to the Nuremberg entrepreneur Karl Benedikt Schwarz.

In 1823, von Schwarz, ennobled by the Bavarian king, assigned the Hirschbach estate to his Schwarz Family Foundation Artelshofen and Henfenfeld. The defensive walls with the two corner turrets, which were intended to serve as flanking defenses, as well as the moat disappeared on one occasion in the 19th century, and the chapel was demolished in 1852. The von Schwarz family sold the seat and the hammer mill in 1878 to Georg Duschel, who converted the hammer mill into a grain mill. In 1894, the seat was sold to the Brunner family. In the 20th century, an excursion restaurant "Zum Hammerschloß" was established in the manor house; corresponding alterations followed. The business has since closed again. A new owner now intends to restore the former moated house.