Burg Streichenberg

Burg Streichenberg stands near the village of Gemmingen in Germany, built by members of the medieval German nobility.

The hill site began as a noble stronghold in the 13th century. Lands in the area had come into the hands of the Counts of Oettingen by the late 12th century, and the castle itself was most likely raised by the local lords of Gemmingen, very probably by Swicker (Schweicker) von Gemmingen between about 1282 and 1287. In the second half of the 13th century the site was held as a Gemmingen fief and ownership or fief-rights then passed through several regional noble houses.

By the 14th and 15th centuries the property moved frequently between families and feudal holders. The first recorded documentary mention of the castle dates to 1331. In 1385 three-quarters of the estate was granted as a fief to Eberhard von Mentzingen. In 1391 the property was pledged for 3,400 Gulden to Hans von Gemmingen and his nephew Jörg. In 1448 Wilhelm IV von Angelach bought the castle for 3,300 Gulden and paid an additional 500 Gulden for new building work. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries saw further transfers among regional nobles.

In 1560 Philipp von Neipperg purchased Streichenberg for 33,000 Gulden, and in 1578 he added the lower mill to his holdings. A claim known as the Mannlehen was sold in 1596 to Elector Friedrich IV, and from that point the castle became property of the Electoral Palatinate. Under Electoral Palatine administration the site contained an official cellar office belonging to the Hilsbach cellar district, and Pfalzgraf Johann pawned the estate from 1621 to members of the Imperial knighthood.

Violence and fire marked the seventeenth century. The mill beneath the castle burned in 1634. A dwelling was built within the castle walls in 1643, but by 1693 the site was explicitly described as ruined. In 1670 the Elector enfeoffed his minor son Karl Ludwig, and through inheritance and marriage parts of Streichenberg later passed to the von Degenfeld-Schomberg family.

In the early nineteenth century the Counts of Degenfeld-Schomberg erected the nearby Schloss Schomberg between 1818 and 1822, and during the mid-1800s the fore-castle area was overbuilt with agricultural buildings as the former fortress was converted into a manor and working farm. A large stable was constructed in 1856, the last of three medieval towers was taken down in 1876 to make room for farm buildings, and a substantial barn was added in 1885. The complex served as a farm until about 1940 and remained inhabited until 1963.

The site fell partly vacant around 1963 and was informally occupied in the mid-1970s, a period that did not stop ongoing decay. Two dilapidated roofless former stable buildings were demolished during that period. Later conservation work secured surviving medieval fabric and prevented further loss. In 1993 and 1994 a defensive wall dating from the fourteenth or fifteenth century was stabilised and partly rebuilt by the Degenfeld-Schomberg family. Around the year 2000 the property was put up for sale and came close to returning to the Gemmingen family, and by about May 2007 the Renaissance portal of the former main hall was being conserved with funding from the regional monument authority.