Wildenheid Castle

The first documented mention was in 1317 as the field name Wildenheyde. In the originally forest, heath, and marshland, the settlement of Wildenheide was established between 1340 and 1347, belonging to the Schaumberg family. At the beginning of the 15th century, the Kemmaten family received the village and heath as a fief. They built the core of the Lower Castle at the beginning of the 16th century and had a large number of ponds created for fish farming. The Waldfriedensee was created as a sheep pond for washing and watering the animals. In 1551, the manor was divided by sale. The purchaser Wilhelm von Schott built a second manor house, the Upper Castle. The Lower Castle was acquired in 1569 by Georg Truchseß von Henneberg. In 1668, Cavalry Captain Wolf Sebastian von Bronsrad reunited both partial estates after purchase. In the next two centuries, ownership changed hands repeatedly until the manor became a ducal domain in 1852. From 1878, the land was sold to local farmers and the castle to the municipality, which established a school with a teacher's residence there. A newly added stable housed the municipal administration.