TrechtingshausenRheinstein
The first of the romantic reconstructions, and therefore the building that set the template for how the nineteenth century thought a Rhine castle ought to look.
- Place
- Trechtingshausen
- Chainage
- rkm 533
- Built
- c. 1316/17; rebuilt 1825–1844
- Condition
- Rebuilt; museum
- Owner
- Private (Hecher family, since 1975)
- Protection
- Within the Upper Middle Rhine Valley World Heritage Site (inscribed 2002)
The medieval castle
A castle was raised on the crag above Trechtingshausen in about 1316/17. It was already described as in decline by 1344 and decayed steadily thereafter, with further damage in the War of the Palatine Succession. By the early nineteenth century it was a picturesque fragment and little else.
Prince Frederick's rebuilding
On 31 March 1823 Prince Frederick of Prussia (1794–1863) bought the ruin. Reconstruction ran from 1825 to 1844 under the architect Claudius von Lassaulx, with Wilhelm Kuhn carrying the work forward after 1827. The prince renamed the site Rheinstein for the cliffs it stands on.
From 1842 it was his preferred residence, and it received a stream of royal visitors, Queen Victoria among them. It is worth being clear about what this means for the fabric: much of what a visitor reads as medieval is careful 1830s work, and the parts that are genuinely old are not always the parts that look oldest.
Since 1975
The castle has been in the hands of the Hecher family since 1975 and is open as a museum. The terraced vine garden below the walls was replanted in the 1990s and is worth the detour on its own.