Hexenturm means “Witch tower” and according to this plaque it is the oldest building in Idstein.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size
The only way to approach the tower is through the gate. This is the view of the tower as one approaches it.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size
And another angle, from the entrance to the castle. And the view of the pavement leading from the gate to the castle and the tower, which looked rather interesting in the evening light.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size
The name was given to the tower allegedly because there were incarcerated women accused of witchcraft, but according to German Wikipedia there is no evidence for his although the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Whatever the truth, nowadays the tower has a much better purpose – it is a nesting site for kestrels Falco tinnunculus and jackdaws Corvus monedula. We have heard the birds but we did not see them and of course, even had we seen them I could not make pictures.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size
The plaque is fastened into such a lovely rock. Look at the strata(?).
It’s so like jackdaws to nest in a place like this.
Germany looks to be a beautiful place. Your photos make me want to visit.
Voyager
Parts of it surely are.
But it’s like everywhere: the places that were the motors of industrialisation are pretty ugly, the ones where nothing ever happened are pretty.
What would be the likely original purpose of that tower? The core of a small wooden town fort in medieval times? The fort might have already decayed and the tower been abandoned or converted to prison use by the time of peak witch hunts.
While no women were actually held in the tower, the witch trials held in the 1600s were notorious, and there’s a plaque on the Hexenturm with the names of the 31 women and 8 men executed.
https://markcz.com/witch-trial-idstein/
Lumipuna
It was tge Bergfried (belfry), the uninhabited main tower of the castle.