Roman Castle Altes Jagdhaus

The small fort Altes Jagdhaus was a stone fort with a slightly trapezoidal ground plan. The defensive wall had rounded corners; its thickness was 1.7 m on the north side, and 2.2 m to 2.3 m on all other sides. It was constructed as dry masonry from only roughly worked quartzite rubble stones. A ditch does not seem to have been present. With its single gate, the fort was oriented northwards, towards the Limes. The gate consisted of a simple wall passage – without recessed cheeks or superstructures – 3.3 m wide, which was shifted about one meter east of the camp's central axis. The fort, whose front was not parallel but oblique to the Limes, was 9 m from the crest of the border wall at its northwest corner and 14 m at its northeast corner.

The interior of the Roman fortification was disturbed by the foundations of a modern building measuring 7 m in width and 10.7 m in length. The walls of the structure were entirely built of mortared brick, and the floor of the main room was also laid with quartzite slabs. This 16th-century building was probably a hunting lodge of the "Waldbote" (forest messenger) of the Hessian princes.

Nothing is known about the garrison of the small fort, presumably a vexillatio of a neighboring larger auxiliary unit or legion. It may have been subordinate to Saalburg fort. The fortification was probably built only around the middle of the second century AD.

Probably in the 16th century, a hunting lodge of the Hohe Mark common land association was built within the remains of the small fort. It was primarily used by the Waldbote, an office inherited by the Landgraves of Hessen-Homburg. This office secured several privileges, such as presiding over the assembly of the Hohe Mark or the right to start hunting three days earlier than other commoners. The main room of the hunting lodge originally had a stone slab pavement. It had a fireplace and built-in seating in the corners. A storage cellar was built into the ground under the adjoining room.

In 2009, the complex was renovated at a cost of 60,000 €. The remains of the Roman ramparts were preserved by earth embankments. The foundations of the hunting lodge were reinforced with a concrete foundation and secured with mortar. This makes the building's floor plan recognizable to visitors.

From the small fort Altes Jagdhaus to the small fort Heidenstock, the Limes runs exclusively through the densely forested area of the Taunus ridge. In doing so, it drops by almost 70 meters in altitude overall. Due to the geological-topographical conditions, it has the peculiarity in this area that in some sections, instead of the ditch, which could only be excavated with difficulty in the existing quartzite rock and whose excavated material was usually used to build the rampart, a stone wall was erected. This wall had an average thickness of two and a half meters and was constructed as dry masonry with quartzite rubble stones. The palisade ditch, however, was continuously present even in these sections of the Limes.

Traces of the Limes structures between the small fort Altes Jagdhaus and the small fort Heidenstock. KK Kleinkastell Altes Jagdhaus see above Wp 3/54 Suspected, but not archaeologically proven, tower site. Wp 3/55 "Klingenkopf" Tower site of a wooden and a stone tower, already documented by Rossel and Cohausen, which were investigated by the commission under Jacobi in 1894.

The wooden tower was circularly surrounded by a 1.2 m deep, 12 m diameter ditch and an eight-meter-wide rampart. In the center of the complex, four large post holes, 1.2 m deep into the bedrock, formed a slightly irregular quadrangle with sides measuring 4.5 m to 5.0 m. The Limes wall cut through the northern half of the wooden tower site, while the palisade curved widely around the tower.

The stone tower was located about 22 m southeast of the wooden tower. It had a square ground plan with sides measuring 5.6 m. On the east side, the rising masonry had a thickness of 90 cm to 95 cm up to a height of about 1.4 m. It then receded on both the outer and inner sides, thereby tapering to a thickness of 65 cm to 75 cm. On all other sides of the tower, however, the wall did not taper up to a maximum recorded remaining height of two meters. In places, the white plaster, painted with red false joints, could still be detected on the outside of the tower. On the north side, 25 cm above the rammed floor of the interior, there was a 75 cm wide entrance. The distance of the tower to the Limes wall was 21 m, and it was 32 m away from the palisade ditch.

The location of the tower site was optimally chosen. The view extended from there into the "Stannheimer Grund" and the upper "Erlenbachtal".

Wp 3/56 Suspected, but not archaeologically proven, tower site. KK Kleinkastell Heidenstock see main article Kleinkastell Heidenstock