Salons castle ruins, Schlans

Castle site on a steep rocky head above Schlans, on the path to the Maiensässen. Deep ditch on the mountain side. Some remains of walls of a once important castle complex. In the north-east corner of the area, foundations of a square tower of megalithic blocks, possibly never completed. On the west side, above a rock fall, remains of the gateway; conical corridor, formerly accessible via a wooden walkway. Considerable remains of the curtain wall in the northwest and southwest sections. Here, traces of two subsequently added traverses or supporting pillars. Inside the castle grounds, next to the tower remains mentioned above, there are still traces of a square house. The megalithic tower probably dates back to the early 13th century. The considerable size of the castle and its location in the high clearing area above Schlans are more indicative of the center of the small allodial lordship of Schlans than the very modest tower near the village. The field name “Plaun da Plaids” to the east of the castle, which refers to a courthouse square, supports this assumption. 

The lordship of Schlans does not appear in the sources until the 14th century, after it had passed from the now extinct lords of Schlans-Grünenfels to the Montalt family. When Heinrich von Montalt transferred Schlans Castle with all its goods and rights to his brother-in-law, Baron Ulrich Walter von Belmont, in 1357 and later received it back as a life estate, the castles of Schlans/Salons and Grünenfels already formed a manorial unit. Schlans thus shared the fate of the Grünenfels lordship in the late Middle Ages, which in turn was to be absorbed into the Rhaetian lordship of Jörgenberg in 1378, and Salons Castle is likely to have been abandoned in the course of the 14th century. The name “Val Casti”, which is attached to the ravine near the castle, is a reminder of the former fortress.

(Recorded by Regiun Surselva)