Birseck Castle is also called Vordere Burg Birseck and is one of four castles on a slope called Birseck that confines the plain of the Birs river. Burg Reichenstein sits on a higher slope to the north.
The origins of the castle probably date back to the age of Counts of Frohburg in the 12th century. Bishop Lüthold of Basel bought the castle hill from the Niedermünster monastery in 1239 and built the present castle in 1243/44.
In the 15th and 17th centuries Birseck was expanded. It served during the Counter-Reformation as a residence for Bishop Christoph Blarer (around 1600). In the middle of the 18th century, a stone bridge replaced the drawbridge.
In the 18th century, the castle was poorly maintained. In 1763 , Karl von Andlau moved his county seat from the castle down to the village. During the French Revolution in 1793, some parts of the English garden, the Ermitage and the building of the castle were set on fire or destroyed by drunken peasants. In 1808, Conrad von Andlau and Canon Heinrich von Ligerz acquired the ruins. The tower and the chapel were restored to their original state in the neo-Gothic style.
References:The first written record of church in Danmark locality date back to the year 1291. Close to the church are several stones with a Christian text and cross inscribed. The oldest parts of the present red-brick church are from the 1300s. In the late 1400s the church was enlarged to the appearance it has today. The church has been modified both internally and externally several times, among other things after the fires in 1699 and 1889. There are lot of well-preserved mural paintings in the walls.