The Augstroze Castle (or Hochrosen, as it was called since the Middle Ages), or rather, the walls that remain of it, is located on a hill in the ancient territory of the Rozula district, about fifteen kilometers east of Limbazi.
The castle was built by vassals of the Archbishop of Riga on top of a 30-meter hill, whose steep slopes themselves served as reliable protection. And for greater security, the castle was built on the summit.
The lower part of its walls was made of boulders, the upper part of brick. The builders had to adapt to the contours of the hill. As a result, the castle’s layout resembles a kind of horseshoe. The wall, stretching in an arc, had a total length of 60 meters, with the ends of the arc connected by a straight wall 42 meters long with gates on the southern side. The thickness of the oval wall was less than two meters, while the thickness of the straight wall, from where an enemy could be expected, was more than two meters.
Fragments of the southern wall of the castle, six to seven meters high, have survived to this day. The ruins of the medieval Augstroze Castle are now an archaeological monument of national significance.
According to researchers from the 18th to 20th centuries, the construction of the castle should be dated to the 13th century.
The first reliably known owner of the castle was Otto von Rosen. The extensive Rosen family was considered one of the most influential vassals of the Riga archbishops. Since then, the castle took its name from its owners – Hochrosen, which can literally be translated from German as “high roses.”
The local legend offers another explanation for the name. The legend says that the construction of the castle was very difficult. The old people began to say that a human sacrifice, to be walled into the castle’s wall, was necessary.
To make it easier and faster to lift all the necessary building materials to the top of the hill, the local residents were lined up and passed heavy stones from hand to hand. However, everything built during the day collapsed into the depths of the hill at night.
There were no volunteers, and the future castle’s owner resorted to a trick. He came to his people and asked: “Who wants to carry the keys to the castle?” A young girl named Rosa volunteered. The landlord gave the girl wine, which made her fall asleep, and the sacrifice was immediately walled into the castle’s wall.
For three days and three nights, her moans were heard from the wall, but now the castle no longer collapsed, and the work was soon completed. And since the girl Rosa was walled into the castle, which now towered high above the surroundings, the place was named Augstroze.
The castle in Augstroze was a so-called vassal castle. Its owners held the largest vassal estates in the Cesis region, large land plots, and several castles. A record from February 5, 1350, has been preserved, according to which the Riga Archbishop Fromhold von Vifhusen leased the lord’s house and castle courtyard of Rose to brothers Waldemar and Heneke von Rosen. The record mentions the castle with fields, mills, and villages. Augstroze Castle played a significant role in the history of Livonia and the masters of the Livonian Order. When in 1482 armed detachments of the Riga burgher Berens destroyed the order castles in Jaunpils, Skujene, and Piebalga, the Order’s troops surrounded Augstroze Castle, which was subordinate to the Riga archbishop. According to the Swedish land survey in 1601, the castle was owned by Heinrich von Rosen. In late June or early July 1601, during the Polish-Swedish war, the castle was besieged by Polish troops led by Shisinsky, who also brought Tatars with him. The castle was captured, plundered, and burned, and after these events, it was never rebuilt in its former form. The invaders killed all the inhabitants: young and old, rich and poor, women and children, pregnant women and the sick.
In 1622, Swedish King Gustav II Adolf confiscated, among other estates, Augstroze Castle from its owners and gifted it to the state chancellor Count Axel Oxenstierna. In 1632, the Augstroze estate and district belonged to Fabian von Rosen, who also owned the estates of Mazstraupe, Rozula, Raiskums (Satekle), and Murjani.
From 1681, hard times came both for the Rosens and for most landowners in Livonia (the great reduction of estates). Of the over six thousand “hacks” (units of land) owned by private individuals, more than five thousand were confiscated by the treasury, and just over a thousand were left to the owners and churches. The reduction was carried out by the chairman of the reduction commission, Count Gastfer. The powerful Rosens could not prove ownership rights to Augstroze Castle because they did not present documents proving how exactly their estates and castles were acquired.
Probably because the Rosens fought on the side of the Swedes in the Great Northern War, their possessions were not returned by the Russian government despite the cancellation of the Swedish estate reduction decisions. At the same time, Mashnovskis writes that the castle and estate of Augstroze belonged to the Rosens until 1759. After that year, representatives of the Meyendorff family managed the estate.
As late as 1801, Augstroze was devastated by Polish soldiers, after which the castle was no longer restored, and in the album of Marquis Paulucci from the 1820s, only the ruins of the castle are visible.
The buildings of the Augstroze estate were created under the Meyendorffs in the second half of the 18th century. The manor house was built in the Classicism style and was repeatedly rebuilt later. Only the granary with an arcade and the servants’ house have survived to this day. The estate had a park of regular layout covering 15.4 hectares with alleys and gazebos; the rest was of free layout. The park was neglected and became completely overgrown.
Among the modern structures on the Augstroze hillfort, according to 1974 data, there was a watchtower, which has not survived to this day. But even now, from the ruins, there is a wide view of Lake Lielezers, the Augstrozes complex nature reserve, and the Northern swamp. In the 21st century, a stage was set up among the ruins, where music festivals were held. Later, the stage was removed, wooden paths were laid around the ruins, and after 2020, the 30-meter ascent to the castle was cleared of trees.
Sources:
https://gidtravel.com/
https://lr4.lsm.lv/lv/raksts/domskaja-ploschad/mestnie-primechatelnosti.-ruini-zamka-augstroze.a177957/
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burg_Hochrosen
