The castle consisted of a lower and an upper castle. It had a brick fortification and stretched at the edges of the top ridge. The considerably damaged originally prismatic tower with shooting ranges on the ground floor has been preserved, which was built to protect the road from Turiec to Ponitrie. The 14th-century two-storey building below has preserved corner stone blocks and the remains of a tarry nose on the north side.Of the later buildings, only the small turret attached to the elongated building on the east side has been preserved.

In 1243, in a document of King Bela IV. mentions the castle as the castrum Turus (Turucz). However, it was probably built earlier in an older settlement, which in 1113 belonged to the Zobor Benedictine. In a later deed from 1253, the same monarch praises the merits of Ondrej of the Hont-Pázmány family, son of Ivanka, for his efforts in building the castle. It was probably built during the Tartar invasion in the years 1241 - 1242.

The castle was two-part with a brick stone fortification. Its dominant feature was a longitudinal towered palace surrounded by a wall.

From the middle of the 13th century it was a committee castle and bore the name Turčiansky hrad and in 1320 it became the property of the post office. Apparently at this time it was extended by a lower building on the east side. In the 14th century, Turiec was separated from the Zvolen capital and a separate Turčian capital was established. Sklabin Castle became its seat. The castle then got the name Zniev and its importance gradually declined.

In 1530, the castellan Gašpar Mičinský treacherously handed over the castle to Mikuláš Kostek, who was in the service of Ján Zápoľský. That is why the castle was severely damaged in 1532, during the conquest by the army of King Ferdinand I. At that time, the upper part of the castle was destroyed, but the lower castle was still maintained. Its main residential building at the end of the Middle Ages consisted of a three-storey palace building, which was created by extending an older residential tower. In 1538 the castle was acquired by František Révay and in 1545 the castle was fortified.

In the following decades, it often changed owners, who gradually repaired individual buildings, and the Renaissance palace was also rebuilt. In 1605 the castle was acquired by the Bočka family.

An archive of the convent was kept at the castle. However, the castle still lacked a modern fortification resistant to artillery, and therefore in 1680 the post office of Ziev ordered the archive to be moved to Sklabiňa. In 1681, the castle was conquered and burned by Thököly's insurgents. In 1705 the castle was occupied by Rákóczi's Kurucs.

The castle was then used as a refuge by the Jesuits. Even in the middle of the 18th century, the castle was maintained and guarded by two police stations. Its demise is expected sometime after 1773, when the Jesuit order was abolished. After this year, the castle gradually fell into disrepair.

In the years 1962 - 1963, archaeological research was carried out at the castle (G. Balaša).

The rumor about the Tartar siege of Zniev

When the Tatars defeated the Hungarian army of King Bela IV in the battle of the Slaná River in 1241, the king himself barely escaped his own death and fled. At the Zniev castle, he was overtaken by the Tatars, who surrounded the castle and attacked it. A wave of Tartar troops crashed into the walls of the castle after the wave, but the arrows from the Tartar bows could not break the solid stone walls. When they could not conquer the castle, they decided to starve its defenders until they surrendered themselves and betrayed the Hungarian king. Meanwhile, the king sat sadly in one of the castle chambers, wondering what to do. He was barely on his feet in hunger, and his crew was no better off. Suddenly, a door opened in the room where no one had noticed it before, and an unknown farmer walked out of the secret corridor.

He placed a basket full of crayfish on the table, plus two roast piglets. He told the king to feed one of the piglets to the starving defenders of the castle, but let the other piglet be thrown over the walls by the Tatars, thus deceiving them that there was still enough food in the castle. The deception really impressed and the Tatars withdrew from the castle. There was great joy at the castle and the king awarded the skilled farmer a noble title with the surname Rakovský as a reward, according to a basket with crayfish, which he brought to the castle through a secret corridor.

The ruins are freely accessible

https://www.hrady-zamky.sk/zniev/