page_title: Zwingenberg, Hesse
section_title: Buildings
hierarchical_section_title: Zwingenberg, Hesse / Culture and sightseeing / Buildings
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die Aul, Reste der Stadtbefestigung der Stadt Zwingenberg an der Bergstraße. English: The Aul, remains of the former fortification of Zwingenberg (Hesse, Germany).
context_page_description: Zwingenberg lies in the Bergstraße district in southern Hesse, Germany, south of Frankfurt and Darmstadt, and with the granting of town rights coming in 1274 it is the oldest town on the Hessian Bergstraße.
context_section_description: The town has a touristically attractive Old Town with timber-frame houses that are interesting both as buildings and as the history that they represent, a mountain church (Bergkirche) and a former castle seat, enfeoffed by Johann von Katzenelnbogen to Hans von Wallbrunn the Elder in 1420.
  At Zwingenberg's highest spot stands today's youth hostel, a former tithe barn built on a bastion’s foundation. Of the round corner towers of the upper town wall, only the Aul has been preserved. It is the northeast tower, a two-floor tower made of undressed quarrystones.
  The remains of the moated castle may well be Zwingenberg’s oldest building. Outwards from this about 1250, the town fortifications took shape. The “New Marketplace” arose at the beginning of the 17th century on the former moated castle's lands and the moat itself.
  The old Amtsgericht (“Amt court”) was built between 1561 and 1563 and restored in 1989. It originally served the Hessian landgraves as a hunting palace.
  The Schlößchen (“Little Palace”), built about 1520, has served the town since 1969 as the Town Hall. Next to it stands the former guesthouse Zum Löwen (“To the Lion”). It was built in 1595 and is the oldest building in existence outside the old town wall. Across the street from it lies the Scheuergasse (lane) formed by two rows of side-gabled barns. These were built outside the old town wall owing to the danger from fire, and today are used mainly as dwellings, offices and guesthouses.
  The vaulted cellar under the Alte Apotheke (“Old Apothecary’s Shop”), which stands on the marketplace, seems to go back to the time when the town wall was built. Later, the Alte Apotheke was known as großherzogliche Apotheke von Katzenellenbogen (the first word meaning “Grand-Ducal”), and was built in 1783.
caption: The Aul
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