Homberg (Efze)

A historic town with a well-preserved half-timbered centre and a castle on the mountain above the town. First mentioned in 1231 and named after the castle.

During the Middle Ages the town prospered and majestic St Mary's Church was built in 1340. In 1526 it hosted a historic event, the Synod of Homberg. Representatives of the spiritual and secular classes of the Landgrave of Hesse took part in the meeting to discuss the introducing the Protestant faith in the Landgrave. A great supporter of this movement was Landgrave Philip I, who also initiated the meeting. The county eventually became Protestant, as the majority of those present at the synod supported Philip's plan.

As of 19 February 2014, the city was officially named Reformation City in honour of this event, which introduced the Reformation in Hesse.





At first we went up to the castle and walked around the grounds. Entrance to the castle and the tower is free.




It is not known who built the castle and when; it was first mentioned in 1190. Just after the entrance, turn left, there is a well dug between 1605 and 1613 by Landgrave Moritz. It is now filled in, but its original depth was 150 metres and it was one of the deepest castle wells, although not as deep as the well in Regenstein Castle in the Harz Mountains.

There is an interesting story connected with the well. In 1636, during the Thirty Years' War, the castle successfully repelled an attack by a 13,000-strong imperial army. However, a woman fell into the well (there were about 3000 refugees in the castle at that time) and the water became unusable. During a new siege, the castle garrison was forced to surrender due to lack of water.


During the Thirty Years' War, the castle was severely destroyed, fell into disrepair and has not been rebuilt since. It was partly used as a quarry to rebuild the also heavily damaged town of Homberg.




I cannot say that the castle is destroyed that badly, though. At least, quite a lot of things have been preserved, especially the tower.


The tower has been restored, you can see this from the historic photos inside, but visually it's hard to tell where the original masonry is and where is the new.

















After visiting the castle, we went for a walk in the old town, around the Market Square (Marktplatz). On some photos it's not really Germany, but more like France.














If you're with kids, be sure to go here 51.035944, 9.403861, where is a great playground, the path to which is not easy to find and leads through interesting ruins.






Getting there: parking near the castle 51.037028, 9.406028, parking in the old town. 51.034333, 9.407250.