There is something mesmerizing about exploring castle ruins. To walk through such old stones, makes you feel like an adventurer! Exploring the Brandebourg castle ruins in Luxembourg was definitively sooo exciting!!
Let’s explore it together, shall we?!
A touch of history
It is difficult to date exactly the Brandebourg castle. Excavations have shown that a wooden fort existed on the site in the 9th century. The remains of the wooden poles used to build such fort enabled archeologist to determine that the constructions included a watch tower, a living building and a palisade.
Such wooden fort seemed to have burnt down and 300 years later a stone castle was slowly built.
The Brandenbourg castle from the 10th to 13th century
The keep and its immediate surrounding seems to date from the 13th century, although some sources says 12th century. The keep is 7m meter by five and rises 12 meter high. It has 3 floors. And again, there is some confusions on such matter as some sources say it had a 4th floors. That is hard to confirm when you are there.
From a distance the keep is impressive in size, but when you are inside you do realize that it really is only a defensive building. Even if the stairs were probably narrower in the past, there is no possibility for livable spaces.
The surrounding of the keep and the first few buildings’ remain seems to date from the same period.
Additional constructions from the 14th & 15th centuries
You can admire from the keep, an additional rectangular tower which dates from the 14th century. It is wider than the keep and included a chapel on the first floor.
Further enlargements of the castle occurred in the 15th century.
Amazing vaulted cellars were carved out, on the Southern and Eastern slopes. In addition the barnyard located in the North of the keep was fortified.
The most important medieval additions are the 3 semi circular towers and curtain wall in the South.
And around 1500, the massive artillery tower located North, just by the entrance, was added. The faussebraye flanked by 4 semi-circular towers also dates from this period, where the entrance was strengthened and the main ditch widened.
Slowly falling into ruins
It doesn’t seem that further important additions were made after that and from the 18th century on, the Brandebourg castle was no longer maintained. It slowly felt into ruins.
In 1936, some basic consolidation works were conducted by the Luxembourg State. Maybe not the best work, like it was often the case during this period.
Since the 1980s, the Brandenbourg castle has seen new interest from archeologist and tourist and further works have been done.
The Brandenbourg castle will most likely never regain its former glory, but it holds in its wall so much history that, despite being in ruin, it is as charming and mysterious as it can be.
The interesting things about the castle
Despite having visited quite a few castles, to say the least, there is always something that puzzle me when visiting a new one. Or at least intrigue me.
It wasn’t any different with the Brandenbourg castle.
The cellars depth
The path inside the castle being kind of like a spiral taking you to the central keep, one of the first thing I explored were the South cellars. The vaulted ceiling in such cellars are astonishing! The size of the rooms above so tiny, you wonder what these could have been?
And there are several little stairs including the ones taking you way down below where you can see the depth of the castle as if you were reaching the inside of a dragon. I know, that’s silly! But that’s how I felt when I saw the opening way down below. Like they are so many secrets, so much unknown and maybe danger…
The well
The path then leads you to a series of rooms which surround the keep. The remaining walls are probably just knee high but one room was particularly surprising to me: the one that looked like a fortified well.
One would often imagine a well being located in the bailey, accessible to all. But in fortresses, wells were often heavily protected as water was obviously of upmost importance during a siege.
I may be totally wrong here, but as you can see on the picture, it does look like a well and I found it extremely interesting.
The keep
I’ve mentioned this above but the keep is very narrow. There doesn’t seem to have any livable space. If there was, it must have been extremely uncomfortable.
And the reason I found it fascinating is that this really show how different castles can be. Some grew from a house, fortified and extended over time. Some always were first and foremost ‘war oriented’. Not necessary purely a fortress but certainly not just a residence.
The chapel
The second tower constructed in the 14th century apparently had a chapel on the first floor. Considering what remains of the tower, it’s hard to tell how many floors there was but it was surprising to me to read that the chapel was inside such tower, on the first floor.
In most castles, the chapel is either in a separate building, either in an oriel window of sort. The reason is that no man should live above God.
So how could the chapel been located on the first floor? That will remain a mystery to me! If you have an answer, do email me!
*****
Exploring the Brandebourg castle ruins was fascinating to me! The only regret I have is that spring had not yet fully arrived in the North of Luxembourg! It was all green in the South but 50 km up North? Nope! It’s quite amazing how such a short distance can make such a huge difference.
Feeling lost?
Do check my castle architecture mini guide. It will help!
The only word that isn’t in the present version of such mini guide, is faussebraye. It will be in the next version of such mini guide if I ever get to this!
Anyway, a faussebraye is part of the defensive feature of medieval castle. It is a smaller wall located outside of the mail fortified walls and is usually preceded by a ditch. It can also be a small building located in front of an entrance to protect it.
The technical bits
Finding the Brandenbourg castle is easy. Perch high above Brandebourg little town, you can see the castle in the distance.
Accessing the castle is a little different! There doesn’t seem to be official signs indicating the entrance, like you may be used to. When you arrive in the Brandebourg little town, you can obviously see the castle, up there. But where do you go?
How do you access it?
I’ve created the below little map to help you. I can’t say we found the official entrance, but we did manage to access the castle!
I would probably recommend option 1 as shown on the image above. But if you have time, do try option 3.
