Jagdschloss Krähberg, Hunting château in Ober-Sensbach, Germany

Jagdschloss Krähberg is a late-Baroque hunting lodge built between 1761 and 1771 for the Erbach-Fürstenau family on a plateau just below the Krähberg summit. Its two-storey rendered manor house has corner quoins, segmental-arched windows and a round-arched portal; four square shingled timber-framed pavilions with mansard roofs stand at the corners of the roughly 40-metre-square grounds.

The Krähberg plateau was first recorded in 795 in the Lorscher Codex as Crawinberk, the southern boundary of the Mark Michelstadt. In 1484 hunting rights there were settled by arbitration between Count Palatine Otto and Schenk Erasmus von Erbach. After Hetzbach sold the hill to Count Ludwig II Friedrich zu Erbach-Fürstenau in 1753, the hunting lodge was built between 1761 and 1771; Hessian heritage records instead credit his brother Georg Albrecht III. Ludwig lived here most of his life, and his descendant Albrecht August Ludwig died at the lodge in 1851.

The name Krähberg appears as Crawinberk in a 795 boundary description of the Mark Heppenheim in the Lorscher Codex. In 1484 hunting rights on the mountain were settled by arbitration between Pfalzgraf Otto and Schenk Erasmus von Erbach. On 23 August 1840 the château hosted the wedding of Luitgarde zu Erbach-Fürstenau to Friedrich Ludwig Graf zu Rechteren-Limpurg-Speckfeld.

The château can only be visited by prior arrangement, so you should contact ahead to arrange access. The building is situated in a forested area and is accessible via hiking trails that also serve as starting points for walks through the surrounding countryside.

The four corner pavilions were not hunting stores but service buildings: timber-framed with mansard roofs, they housed the kitchen, the estate manager and the servants. The main house kept a mansard roof until it was replaced by the present tent roof.