The castle standing at the heart of the Ribnica settlement was one of the rare flatland or water castles in Slovenia. It was built for the Counts of Ortenburg in the second half of the thirteenth century or, rather, before 1263. Prior to the fifteenth century, the original building layout was expanded and added the second residential building. No later than the first half of the sixteenth century, the castle was enclosed with an extensive anti-Turkish defensive wall which also served as an anti-Turkish fortification for the inhabitants of the market town of Ribnica. In the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the castle underwent several renovations that converted it into a comfortable residence of influential nobility from Novo mesto. The building complex was added an extensive non-adjoining garden, accentuated with a splendidly designed pavilion. During the Second World War and immediately after, most of the castle was torn down. The remains were restored between 1958 and 1961, according to the design of Ciril Tavčar.