St Collen's Church is a parish church in the town of Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales. The first church on the site was founded by Collen in the 6th century. Nothing of this building remains. A new church was built in the 13th century, in the Early English Gothic style. This was developed in the succeeding centuries, and then almost completely rebuilt in the 19th century. The architect of the Victorian reconstruction was Samuel Pountney Smith, who retained little of the earlier church, with the exception of the tower. The churchyard contains the grave of the Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Charlotte Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, and their servant Mary Carryl, who lived at the nearby Plas Newydd.
References:The Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg is situated in a strategic area on a rocky spur overlooking the Upper Rhine Plain, it was used by successive powers from the Middle Ages until the Thirty Years' War when it was abandoned. From 1900 to 1908 it was rebuilt at the behest of the German kaiser Wilhelm II. Today it is a major tourist site, attracting more than 500,000 visitors a year.
The first records of a castle built by the Hohenstaufens date back to 1147. The fortress changed its name to Koenigsburg (royal castle) around 1157. The castle was handed over to the Tiersteins by the Habsburgs following its destruction in 1462. They rebuilt and enlarged it, installing a defensive system designed to withstand artillery fire.
The fortification work accomplished over the 15th century did not suffice to keep the Swedish artillery at bay during the Thirty Years War, and the defences were overrun.