As a result of its exposed location above the valley of the Wiesent, it has become a symbol of Franconian Switzerland.
The ruins are freely accessible; the tower house is used as a viewing point.
The ruins of the spur castle are located in the Franconian Switzerland-Veldenstein Forest Nature Park about 800 metres east of the church in the village of Streitberg. They stand above the Wiesent valley on a hill spur (402.9 m above sea level NN) north-northeast of the hill of Wartleitenberg (488 m above NN).
The ruins may be reached on various hiking trails from the valley or from the villages on the plateau.
In the vicinity of Neideck there are other old castles: to the northwest are the ruins of Streitberg, to the north is the burgstall ("castle sitle") of Kulk on the hill called the Guckhüll, towards the east on a former river island in the Wiesent is the former motte-and-bailey castle of Wöhr near the hamlet of the same name. To the southeast, in the village of Trainmeusel, there also used to be a castle, of which the gable side is still visible. In the immediate vicinity of the Neideck, ca. 250 metres above and to the southwest is the Wartleiten and on the Hummerstein above Gasseldorf an early mediaeval burgstall.
The plateau above the Wiesent valley was already in use in prehistoric times as a settlement area. Archaeologically, traces of settlement of the Urnfield, the late Hallstatt and early La Tène cultures, the early Roman Empire and Great Migration period have been documented. The unusual size of the medieval castle and its two vast outer baileys with their deep ditches could indicate an early medieval hillfort.
The castle was first mentioned in 1312 as the property of the edelfrei family of Schlüsselberg. A Henry of Neideck, however, was recorded as early as 1219 in a documentary source. The castle was therefore probably built in the 12th century, possibly as early as 1150/60. At that time there was probably only a small wooden outer bailey in front of the main castle on the distinctive shoulder of rock above the Wiesent valley.
From 1312 it was owned by Conrad II of Schlüsselberg, the most important and the last representative of his family line. He expanded the Neideck into a fortress. With an area of 140 × 200 metres, it was one of the largest German castles. The shield wall, outer and inner moats, two artillery towers, main ditch and bridge, the tower house and adjoining building elements of the main castle are still visible. When Conrad of Schlüsselberg got into a feud in 1347 over the imposition of a toll with the bishops of Würzburg and Bamberg and the Burgrave of Nuremberg, they attacked and defeated him. Conrad, himself, was killed on 14 September 1347 by a stone fired from a trebuchet and the castle was subsequently destroyed. After the siege, Neideck became the seat of an office (Amt) of the bishops of Bamberg.
After the castle had survived the Peasant's War in 1525, it was captured and set on fire in 1553 in Second Margrave War by mercenaries of Margrave Albert Alcibiades of Brandenburg-Kulmbach. Since then it has been a ruin.
Until the early 19th century, the fortress was used by the residents of the valley as a quarry. Its decline was further accelerated in the period 1737-1743 when rock on which the castle stands was quarried for marble.
The increasing decline of the castle ruins prompted the municipality of Streitberg shortly after the Second World War to start implementing the first conservation measures. In 1996, the county of Forchheim began the comprehensive renovation of the ruins; this was completed in 2008 with the opening of an "Archaeological Park" on the castle site. The work was accompanied by archaeological excavations, but not always in accordance to the latest historic preservation methods.
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