Burg Zillenhart

Burg Zillenhart in Schlat, Germany, was established by the Lords of Zillenhart, a medieval local noble family.

The site served as the family’s ancestral seat and appears in records from the early 13th century. In 1241 Sifried von Zillenhart is listed as a vassal of the Counts of Helfenstein, linking the castle and its owners to the regional lordship of that era.

A member of the same family appears again in the mid 14th century. Seuridus de Zullhard, also named as Seifried von Zillenhard, is recorded on a Visconti paylist in 1354. Around 1350 he is reported to have established a small chapel below the family stronghold beside the old trade route between Kirchheim unter Teck and Süßen, dedicating that chapel to St. Gotthardt. The chapel gave its name to the settlement that developed there, called St. Gotthardt; that place later became part of Holzheim in the city of Göppingen and is noted as the only location with that name north of the Alps and outside northern Italy and Austria.

By 1604 the castle was already ruined. In recent decades the hilltop has received renewed attention: an interpretive panel was placed on the castle plateau in 2012, and in 2020 the University of Tübingen together with the county archaeology office of Göppingen carried out geophysical prospection at the site.