Ruins of Biber Castle

Castles - palaces - mansionsCultural

In the idyllic countryside where the Kishanta and Korompa rivers meet, there was an ancient village in the Árpád era, complemented by a castle on the hill above it. The small fortress, surrounded by a rampart, is known in history as Bibervár, although only indirectly. HOWEVER, the exact date of the construction of Bibervár or Pusztatorony is not known, but the ceramic and metal artefacts from the 1980 excavation led by Zsuzsa Miklós, as well as the design of the door frame found during the excavation of the tower, suggest that the small fortress was built in the 1260s at the latest – although it was probably built on the top of the hill in the late 12th or early 13th century, before the Tatar invasion, to protect the exit from Kospallag. The small fortress, consisting of a residential tower and an attached courtyard, was originally called Torony or Toronya, and the finds suggest that a settlement, probably called Toronyalja, was located nearby. This type of fortress was mainly used as a residence for the small and middle nobility, to protect their property and as an economic centre for their estates. It was probably destroyed before the 15th century, and some believe that it was destroyed in an attack in the early 14th century, during the anarchic times following the extinction of the Árpád dynasty in 1301. Today, only the characteristic line of the north-western section and a fragment of the northern section of the fortress remain.