Neu-Süns Castle

The site occupies a low wooded plateau about 815 metres above sea level above a farm called Canova, between Almens and Paspels. The castle was laid out on that flat crest and protected by a surrounding stone wall, a neck ditch cut across the connecting ground, and steep natural slopes. Only fragments of the encircling wall survive today, and a clear breach opens on the south side where the outer defences were once concentrated; the original main gate cannot be located with certainty but may have stood on that southern approach.

At the centre of the plateau stands the ruin of a rare circular keep that was originally five storeys tall. The northern half of the tower survives up to that original height while the southern wall was intentionally collapsed during mid-15th-century conflict. The round tower was built of stone with consistently thick walls, about 1.5 metres across, and its floors were formed of timber beams resting within the masonry. The levels were separated by wooden intermediate floors, and the third and fourth storeys served as living chambers. The tower had a high entrance in the second storey.

Remains inside the tower preserve evidence of domestic fittings. Two latrine projections survive, together with window seats and the flues or smoke outlets associated with an open hearth and with an oven. The tower once finished with a slightly projecting battlemented parapet and a narrow walkway for defence, and a shallow‑pitched wooden gabled roof was hung into the masonry beneath that parapet; the roof was described historically as being sheltered by the surrounding battlements from fire arrows. Where the southern wall was brought down the gap in the wallscape is a visible reminder of the deliberate destruction in the fifteenth century.

A narrow enclosed space ran around the tower at roughly three metres distance, forming an inner defensive ring, but only slight traces of that feature and of the outer ring wall remain. To the south‑west of the circular keep there was a rectangular outer bailey protected by steep slopes and a ditch; very little of its walls survives above ground. In the northern part of the site a cistern cut into the living rock is preserved, now filled with rubble, and it was probably supplied by runoff from the roofs when the castle was occupied.