The first written records of the settlement known at the time as ‘Erla’ were made in 1334, under the lordship of Engelbert von Tiesenhausen. The castle was built between 1341 and 1397 in the German style. It was rectangular in shape and had four towers — the Round Tower, the Rectangular Tower, the High Tower, and the Gate Tower, which housed an ammunition store. There was a chapel inside and there were various domestic buildings in the surrounding area. A drawbridge provided a secure entrance to the castle.
The castle was damaged during the Livonian War in 1577, and completely destroyed during the Polish-Swedish War at the beginning of the 17th century. In 1722, the von Tiesenhausen family mortgaged their Ērgļi property to Gotthard Wilhelm von Berg, who then bought it for 21,750 thalers in 1734.
Altogether, the von Tiesenhausens ruled in Ērgļi for 400 years.
