house built in the mid-12th century. Towards the end of that century, they replaced the tower house with a keep and added a palas. The Palatinate greatly expanded the castle and from 1360 on built the present fortress. The Palatine castle had an outer bailey whose curtain wall was lined with a barracks, prison, tithe barn, stables, and granary. A garden was laid out on the site of the barracks. Beyond two flanking towers was the inner bailey, surrounded by a enceinte accessed by a staircase tower, both rebuilt around 1900. Within the inner bailey was a five-story palas, demolished in 1794 and survived only by its undercroft, called the Witch's Cellar (Hexenkeller). The cellar was once used as a students' prison by the University of Heidelberg. The nearby Commandant's House was built around 1550 in the outer bailey and became the garrison commander's residence in 1648. When the castle was demolished in 1822, the Commandant's House survived because it was privately owned at the time. It was purchased by the city of Neckargmünd in 1854 and thereafter used as the town hall, temporary housing, and a school from 1894 to 1982. When Neckargmünd could no longer afford the upkeep for the Commandant's House, it was purchased in 1996 by the local district-level government, who renovated it into a cultural center the following year. The castle well, also in the inner bailey, is deep. Nearby, and under the castle, is an adit and tunnel measuring long. The well was dug in two phases; when the castle was first constructed the well was deep and was then deepened between 1650 and 1680 for the castle's permanent garrison. The tunnels were also dug in the second phase to ventilate fumes from the well's mining, and then was filled up. They passed into local legend as a secret passageway until they were rediscovered by a German-American named Fritz von Briesen around 1900. 20 years before, Mark Twain wrote about the tunnels in A Tramp Abroad. See also List of castles in Baden-Württemberg Citations References Ruined castles in Germany