Counter-Reformation it was closed in 1636, and in 1730/31 it was re-opened as a Catholic parish church. The far older gate tower Mitteltor from 1392 serves as its belfry. The medieval town centre is still surrounded by its original town wall. The Protestant church, near Grabengasse, was consecrated in 1892. Ersheim Church on the left bank of the river, on a sort of peninsula within its horseshoe bend, was first mentioned in 773 (in the Lorsch codex) and is said to be the oldest church in the Neckar valley. It also contains some frescoes from the 14th and 15th centuries. Numerous half-timbered buildings have been preserved in the old part of Hirschhorn. Museum Langbein Museum, on Alleeweg at the junction of Grabengasse, displays antiquities and natural history specimens which had been collected by 19th century Hirschhorn innkeeper and amateur taxidermist Carl Langbein (1816 - 1881). It shares its building, which used to be a forestry office, with the tourist information. Between May and September this is also the starting point for free guided tours of the town and of the castle on Saturdays. Hirschhorn in art and literature In 1844 Joseph Mallord William Turner, the famous English Romantic artist, painted some watercolours of several places in the Neckar valley. He was on a trip to Switzerland, Heidelberg, and the Rhine. Two watercolours of Hirschhorn Castle are in the possession of The Tate Gallery, London, as well as two sketches of Hirschhorn with the church of Ersheim in the foreground. J.M.W. Turner, Hirschhorn on the Neckar from the South J.M.W. Turner, Hirschhorn on the Neckar from the North Adolf Schmitthenner, a minister at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Heidelberg at the beginning of the 20th century, wrote a novel about Frederic, the last of the knights of Hirschhorn, who died in 1632, allegedly as the result of a curse by the mother of his cousin whom he had killed in a duel. Set against the background of the Thirty Years' War, Das Deutsche Herz gives a vivid impression of the age of chivalry in its decline. Another famous visitor to Hirschhorn was Mark Twain. He travelled from Heilbronn to Hirschhorn by boat, stayed overnight at the hotel "Zum Naturalisten" on August 9, 1878, and continued his journey to Heidelberg by coach and train. In his book A Tramp Abroad, the boat becomes a raft, and the travellers end up