Home / Register / Pfalzgrafenstein
Kaub (mid-river)Pfalzgrafenstein
A customs post built on a rock in the middle of the river, and the clearest surviving demonstration of what the Rhine castles were actually for.
- Place
- Kaub (mid-river)
- Chainage
- rkm 546
- Built
- 1326/27
- Condition
- Complete; restored
- Owner
- State of Rhineland-Palatinate (since 1946)
- Protection
- Within the Upper Middle Rhine Valley World Heritage Site (inscribed 2002)
A toll station, not a residence
Ludwig IV the Bavarian had the tower raised on the Falkenau rock in 1326/27 for the plain purpose of increasing his toll revenue. There is no hall, no great chamber and no pretension to lordly living: the building is an office with walls.
Chain booms were run across the narrow passage beside the rock. A vessel that paid was let through; a vessel that did not, was not. Boats that refused could be held at the island until the matter was settled.
Building phases
The pentagonal core tower stands 36 m over six storeys. Around 1340 a six-sided outer wall with corner turrets, some 12 m high, was thrown around it. In 1607 the Elector Friedrich IV modernised the whole for artillery, adding the gun bastions and completing the profile that survives today.
The pointed prow facing upstream is the most photographed part of the building and the most practical: it splits drift ice, which is the only thing that has ever seriously threatened the structure.
Survival
The island withstood a thirty-nine-day siege in 1504 and was occupied by Spanish troops between 1620 and 1632 during the Thirty Years' War. It was never slighted. Toll collection finally ceased in 1867, and the building has been in state hands since 1946.
Access
Reached only by ferry from Kaub. Sailings depend on the river level and the season, and the castle is normally shut through December and January. There is no step-free access anywhere on the island.