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Until 1826 Bismarckstraße served as the main street to the court. Up until then it led directly through the city center at that time, the present day Ludwigstraße. In order to come from the court into the city earlier one had to go through the upper gate, which was at Klosterplatz at the beginning of Ludwigstraße (see the video below). In order to save the toll for passage on the paved street, some also made use of the path over the unreinforced lower ditches, westward beyond the city fortifications. There was not a continuous city wall that enclosed Münchberg, but a simple city defense for protection from attacks existed at one time. Two city gates were also integrated into this protective city structure.

In 1779 there was a plan to build the upper gate with two prisons, however the prison was built behind the town hall in 1787. It is gathered from the building plans of the time that the upper city gate was a fortified tower with a room in the upper section. One could probably reach this by a wooden staircase on the outside. When the gate and the city defenses served mainly as protection from attacks in earlier times, the tower must have been accessible by other means. One probably reached by means of the walkway of the city wall. Why the upper city gate was taken down in 1788/89 is not known. Today there is nothing more to be seen of it. The lower city gate stood until around 1848.

You can view a 3D model of the upper city gate as a PDF file (29MB), zoom and rotate it. In Google Earth you can view the upper city gate if you download our HMW file for Google Earth.