Borl Castle (Ankenstein) is located on a steep rocky hill above the Drava River in Haloze. Due to its natural location on the Hungarian-Croatian border, it has had an important strategic role from the very beginning. It originally served as a Hungarian border post. It guarded the strategically important river crossing over the Drava, as evidenced by the Hungarian and German names of the castle Borlyn or Anchestein, which are supposed to mark the river crossing.
The building is classified as an immovable monument of national importance and was declared as such on 6 October 1999. A cultural national monument is a building that has exceptional cultural value at the national level. Such buildings are initially assessed as cultural heritage and then entered into the Register of Immovable Cultural Heritage. The declaration is carried out by acts of proclamation adopted by the competent authority. These acts are published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia or the local community gazette.
It was built in the Middle Ages, historical sources say that its beginnings date back to the 12th or 13th century, it may have been built earlier, and the first written sources mention the year 1255 as Anchenstein Castle, whose coat of arms was worn by the famous owners, the Anchensteins, who died out in 1323. At that time, the castle was given to the lords of Ptuj as a fief, and then after 1438 they were followed by various owners, including the counts of Schaunberg, the barons of Szekely from 1494 to 1595, the counts of Sauer from 1639 to 1801, the counts of Wurmbrand until the beginning of this century, and after 1901 the barons of Kübeck. Between the two wars, the castle was owned by the joint-stock company Barlin from Maribor.