Klopp Castle

 ( 13th-century Fortifications ) 

The state of Hesse acquired the ruin in 1815 and sold it to Hermann Faber, a lawyer. It was later owned by a Berliner called Rosenthal, Die Rheinlande von der Schweizer bis zur holländischen Grenze: Handbuch für Reisende, 27th ed. Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1895, p. 248 who renovated the well. Both charged tourists to climb the gate tower as a viewing platform; Faber built a stairway up the outside of the walls and a viewing room at the top which he furnished with books of poetry, a comfortable sofa and a fully equipped writing desk, and laid out the grounds as a garden with romantic paths through the grapevines, trees and flowers. He also installed an aeolian harp.Schmandt, p. 193; but he reports it to have been the bergfried rather than the gate tower. The castle was one of the major sights of the Romantic Rhine. J.M.W. Turner sketched a view of it from the River Nahe in 1844. "Bingen and Burg Klopp from the Nahe", Tate Gallery By the end of the 19th century, some 75,000 entries had been made in the visitors' book.Schmandt, p. 194. In 1853 the gatehouse, the bridge across the moat and the fortifications were rebuilt for Ludwig Maria Cron. The bergfried was rebuilt as a Battlement tower 26 metres high, with four corner turrets. In 1875–79, a new Gothic building was built on the site. The architect for both was the mayor, Eberhard Soherr.Helmut Mathy, Bingen: Geschichte einer Stadt am Mittelrhein. Vom frühen Mittelalter bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, Binger Stadtgeschichte 1, Stadt Bingen, 1989, repr. Mainz: Zabern, 2003, , p. 203 The base of the bergfried, the moat and parts of the southern curtain wall and its chemin de ronde are the only remnants of the medieval castle.