Langenau Castle is an old lowland castle in the municipality of Obernhof in the county of Rhein-Lahn-Kreis.
The site of the fortification was the confluence of the Gelbach and the Lahn rivers. As a result, the castle is designed as a lowland type, which is unusual for this region.
In 1243 the castle was first mentioned in the will of Countess Mechthild of Sayn who left it to the Archbishopric of Cologne. The archbishop enfeoffed the fortress shortly thereafter to the noble family of Langenau, cousins of the counts of Laurenburg and thus of the House of Nassau. The family kept the castle as a joint inheritance or Ganerbschaft for centuries.
The original fortress was turned into a water castle on the construction of a dyke. Today, of the 13th century fortification, only the square Romanesque style bergfried is left. The remaining fortifications, an enceinte and an eight-metre-high shield wall with two flanking towers, show elements of Gothic architecture and appeared in the 14th or 15th centuries. Presumably by the middle of the 14th century, when the Langenaus built New Langenau Castle as their main residence, the castle no longer served as a noble seat, but primarily as a base from which to manage the estate.
In 1613 the Langenau family died out. The castle changed ownership several times in the years that followed. In the 17th century, a large timber-framed domestic building was built. In 1696 the mercantile and industrialist family of Marioth purchased the site as their residence and had it converted into a schloss in 1698.
In 1847, Countess Giech, a daughter of Prussian reform minister, vom und zum Stein, became the new occupant. She had the schloss converted in 1851 into a hospital and home for children of the poor.
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The church of the former Franciscan monastery was built probably between 1515 and 1520. It is located in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Old Rauma. The church stands by the small stream of Raumanjoki (Rauma river).
The exact age of the Church of the Holy Cross is unknown, but it was built to serve as the monastery church of the Rauma Franciscan Friary. The monastery had been established in the early 15th century and a wooden church was built on this location around the year 1420.
The Church of the Holy Cross served the monastery until 1538, when it was abandoned for a hundred years as the Franciscan friary was disbanded in the Swedish Reformation. The church was re-established as a Lutheran church in 1640, when the nearby Church of the Holy Trinity was destroyed by fire.
The choir of the two-aisle grey granite church features medieval murals and frescoes. The white steeple of the church was built in 1816 and has served as a landmark for seafarers.