North of Laudert, cleft here and there by the Autobahn or high-voltage transmission lines, is an otherwise continuous expanse of higher-elevation forest growing above mainly greywacke bedrock. In these woods, roughly a kilometre away from the village, in a swampy area that once afforded protection against attackers, is a flat-topped, motte-like mound. It is rectangular and girded by two earthen walls, one inside the other, between which lay water traps (not, apparently, a continuous moat). A manmade hillock that still stands on this "motte" may once have been topped by a defensive tower. The complex, known locally as the "Alte Burg" ("Old Castle"), cannot be dated with any certainty. Nearby, the two Roman roads, the one between Bingen and Koblenz and the one between Oberwesel and Treis, crossed each other, leading to the assumption that the complex was likely built in Roman times.