Wackenau Castle (Ruin) (Bonaduz)

The ruins of Wackenau Castle are located in the municipality of Bonaduz in the Swiss canton of Graubünden.

The sparse ruins of the former Wackenau Castle are located about three kilometers northwest of the municipality in a typical spur position above a loop of the Vorderrhein river. It can be reached on foot in about twenty minutes from a parking lot west of Bonaduz.

Around 1573, Ulrich Campell mentions a castle Wackenauv or Wackenoug and interprets the name as "watch over the meadow" or "watching eye". However, Fortunat Sprecher mentions the name Vackenou in 1617. This designation (Wacke = fieldstone, pebble) corresponds quite accurately to the castle's location above considerable scree masses deposited here by the Vorderrhein.

The castle was protected on the mountain side by a prominent neck ditch. A curtain wall followed the course of the plateau, remnants of which are still visible in the west. Above the ditch, the enceinte was developed as a strong shield wall. Round scaffolding holes can be seen in the rubble stones. Inside the complex, in the northeast, there are barely perceptible traces of a building with an original wall thickness of 0.85 meters. Traces of a tower are missing. Remains of a cistern, which Poeschel still found towards the end of the 1920s, are no longer recognizable.

There are no written documents about the origin and history of Wackenau Castle. The wall remains do not allow any conclusions about its construction. The castle probably served to protect the road to Trin, which led over a bridge here.