Alt-Toggenburg Castle

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Alt-Toggenburg Castle
Creation time : around 900 to 1100
Castle type : Hilltop castle
Conservation status: Burgstall
Standing position : Count
Place: Kirchberg
Geographical location 47 ° 23 '18 "  N , 8 ° 58' 46"  E Coordinates: 47 ° 23 '18 "  N , 8 ° 58' 46"  E ; CH1903:  716334  /  249753
Height: 966  m above sea level M.
Alt-Toggenburg Castle (Canton of St. Gallen)
Alt-Toggenburg Castle

The Alt-Toggenburg Castle is an abandoned hilltop castle on the Iddaberg in the area of ​​today's municipality of Kirchberg SG and was the ancestral castle of the Toggenburg counts . The pilgrimage site of St. Iddaburg for the veneration of St. Idda of Toggenburg has been located on the castle grounds since 1861 .

location

The castle stood 966 m above sea level. M. southwest over Gähwil on a narrow ridge that drops steeply on three sides. It formed the old center of Toggenburg possessions in today's lower Toggenburg and Untertoggenburg .

history

Originally a Bronze Age and Iron Age hill settlement, it became the ancestral seat of the Counts of Toggenburg. The first mention dates back to 1044. The St. Gallen abbot Ulrich III. left the castle devastated in 1085, after which it was rebuilt. In 1226 it went to the Abbey of St. Gallen and in 1289 to Rudolf von Habsburg . In 1320 it belonged again to the abbey, which closed the castle in the same century.

In 1861 pastor Josef Anton Wäspi founded the pilgrimage site of St. Iddaburg on Burgplatz. In 1888 a Lourdes grotto was set up as a further attraction for the pilgrims. The pilgrimage chapel was built in its present form in 1933/34. At the same time the rectory and an access road were built.

investment

The system is 230 m long. The residential tower of the main castle had an area of ​​14 × 14 m and had 2.2 m thick walls. Maybe the minstrel Graf Kraft von Toggenburg came from here.

photos

  • Lourdes grotto on the eastern slope of the Idda mountain

  • Aerial view by Walter Mittelholzer with the former pilgrimage chapel

  • Pilgrimage Church of St Iddaburg, exterior view

  • Choir of the pilgrimage church. The choir picture shows St. Idda , on the right the rest of the Holy Family on the flight to Egypt is shown, on the left the Descent from the Cross as a Pietà ; front copy of the Black Madonna in Einsiedeln Abbey .

literature

Web links

Commons : St. Iddaburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ St. Iddaburg Inn