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Besides their castle proper, which was held at first as a fief of the Empire, and afterward came to be regarded as their hereditary, independent property, the Burggrafs were also entrusted with the keeping of a tower which commanded the entrance to the Castle rock on the country side, perhaps near the site of the present Vestner Thor.
It was burned down in 1420, and the ruined remains of it are supposed to be traceable in the eminence, now overgrown by turf and trees, through which a sort of ravine, closed in on either side by built-up walls, has just brought us from the town to the Vestner Thor. The exact extent of the former we can not now determine. Meisterlin refers to it as a little fort.
It is worth paying the small gratuity required for ascending to the top. The view obtained of the city below is magnificent. The Vestner Thurm, like the whole Imperial castle, passed at length into the care of the town, which kept its Tower watch here as early as the fourteenth century.
The trench has been long since filled in, but the huge round tower which guarded the gate still remains and is the Vestner Thurm. It was built in the days of early Gothic, with a sloping base, and of roughly flattened stones with a smooth edge. It was partly restored and altered in 1561, when it was made a few feet higher and its round roof was added.
From every beaker she put to her lips to drink shone forth her image as if from beyond the tomb. On Sunday she climbed up the Vestner Tower, and let her eyes roam over the plains below as if in the grief of departure. She leaned forward out of the little window with a feeling of assuaging horror. The keeper, seeing what she was doing, rushed up, seized her arms, and made her get back.
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