Sooneck Castle

Sooneck Castle is a castle in the upper middle valley of the Rhine, in the Mainz-Bingen district of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is located near the village of Niederheimbach between Bingen and Bacharach. Since 2002, Sooneck Castle has been part of the Rhine Gorge UNESCO World Heritage Site.HistoryRecent research has established that the castle was probably first mentioned in 1271. Like neighbouring Reichenstein Castle, it was managed by the lords of Hohenfels as bailiffs for Kornelimünster Abbey near Aachen.What is certain is that the castle was besieged in 1282 by King Rudolph I. His troops overran and destroyed the castle and the king imposed a ban on rebuilding it, which he explicitly restated in 1290. In April 1346 Archbishop Henry III of Mainz gave Sooneck Castle in fief to John, Knight Marshall of Waldeck, who subsequently had a new castle built on the site. After his death it passed jointly to four of his heirs and the castle thus became a multi-family property, or Ganerbenburg.