Mahlsches Castle

The old Muffel Castle was burned down in the First Margrave War in 1449 and remained in ruins. During the reconstruction in the years 1512–1518, Jakob Muffel erected a building on the edge of the narrower castle area, which first appeared in the division of property in 1549 as a "secondary castle" and was assigned to Gabriel Muffel. It presumably stood on the site of a larger predecessor building, which had probably served as a residence for the owners of the second half of the Veste, Stephan Weigel (1330–1350), the knights Albrecht and Stephan von Wolfstein (1350–1382), and then until its destruction in 1449, for the Muffel von Eschenau.

The building, rebuilt after 1512, was probably used both as accommodation for the lord and as the seat of the Vogt. After 1549, Jakob's son Gabriel set up a brewery in the building, whose function was still remembered in 1708. Georg Jakob Muffel was then granted permission to "demolish the completely defunct former brewery standing in the large castle courtyard to its foundations" in order to erect a two-story house for his mother there. Apparently, however, he left the brick ground floor standing and only removed the old brewery; on the upper floor, he set up a living room, a kitchen, and one to two chambers for his mother. His mother (1716) and he himself (1728) were to die in the building. The property fell to his brother Christoph Jakob Muffel, was sold to the Margrave in 1751, who rented it out. In 1798, the secondary castle, along with the other castle components, was sold to private individuals, first to Ernst Jacobi (who had already acquired the "Small Castle"), and in the same year to the tanner Erhard Müller. From 1806, the secondary castle shared the fate of the opposite "Great Castle," went to the cooper Barth, and in 1823 to Georg Mahl, who gave the castle its name as "Mahl's Castle."