Letten Castle

As late as the early 15th century, Letten, an imperial estate in the Lorenzer Reichswald, consisted of only a single farm, which King Ruprecht enfeoffed to Herdegen and Jobst from the Nuremberg banking family Valzner in 1401. Subsequently, they laid out numerous ponds south of the farm and built a residence for their protection. This residence in the midst of the ponds was – in contrast to the farm – free property and exempt from tithes.

In 1448, the property passed by inheritance from Margarethe, widow of Herdegen Valzner, to her niece Apollonia Mendel. Just one year later, the "Sitzlein" (small residence) was destroyed in the First Margrave War, and came into the possession of the Nuremberg patrician family Rieter, who subsequently called themselves "von Letten". Through marriage to Katharina Rieter, the only daughter of Sebald Rieter, Kaspar Kreß received the estate with the residence in 1490. His grandson Christoph II. Kreß had the "Herrensitzlein" (manor house) renovated in 1544 by the Nuremberg master builder Paulus Behaim for the considerable sum of over 1,200 guilders. Only a little later, he had to witness the manor house being destroyed again in the Second Margrave War on May 31, 1552, the household goods plundered, the ponds ruined and fished out, resulting in a total damage of 3,500 guilders. For 600 guilders, the residence was repaired and a room paneled by 1558.

Magdalena, the widow of Christoph II. Kreß, brought Letten to her second husband Johann Pfinzing in 1573, who subsequently referred to himself as "von Henfenfeld und Letten". According to a building inscription on the gable, his son Karl Pfinzing had the residence extensively rebuilt, if not newly constructed, in 1603. The two-story building received a sandstone plinth with a half-timbered upper floor and a gabled roof. In 1622/29, the Muffel family followed through the marriage of Christoph Jakob Muffel to Klara Magdalena Pfinzing, then the Löffelholz family, and in 1743 again the Kreß family, who acquired the residence with its appurtenances for around 17,200 guilders.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Georg Christoph Wilhelm Kreß sold the Letten estate to the hop farmer Georg Rögner, who subsequently converted the manor house according to the requirements of his agriculture. Presumably, he had the moats, which were still filled with water in the 18th century, abandoned and largely filled in, and the drawbridge at the front with the two flanking round turrets removed. On the ground floor, a round-arched portal once led into a large threshing floor, which was converted into a stable, while the portal was bricked up. In 1993, the half-timbered facade of the manor house was uncovered and restored.