Gjaidhof Castle

The east side of the castle in June 2004

The Gjaidhof Castle is in Dobl in the Steiermark situated castle . Its history goes back to the 13th century. Since 1959 it has been in the possession of the Order of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Vincent de Paul, who run a private secondary school there.

location

The castle is located in the village of Dobl, which belongs to the municipality of Dobl-Zwaring, on the edge of a bank terrace sloping steeply towards the Kainach in the immediate vicinity of the parish church . On the mountain side, the complex is separated from the adjacent hill country by a neck ditch . The Imperial Forest , which was once important for hunting, is now around 500 meters from the castle.

history

The castle in 1681, copper engraving by Georg Matthäus Vischer

The castle was originally a shortly after 1222 by Leopold VI. Built defense yard with a simple tower. It served as a hunting seat as well as to supervise the nearby Kaiserwald and the road connection from the Kainachtal to Graz. Furthermore, a chapel was added to the courtyard around 1222, which later became today's Dobler parish church . From 1240 to 1242 Friedrich II used the farm as a starting point for his hunting trips. After the death of Frederick II, the reason went to his niece Gertrud . Her daughter Agnes and her husband Ulrich Graf von Heunburg sold the hunting lodge to King Rudolf I in 1279 .

In the course of the uprising of the Styrian nobility in the Landsberger Bund against Duke Albrecht I in 1292, the property was occupied and devastated by his opponents. After the defeat of the rebels, the property returned to the Duke's possession and was rebuilt.

In the 14th century, the name "Gjaidhof", which is common today, was adopted for the estate and it was looked after by Habsburg servants who held the office of sovereign hunter master. Nycla Rogendorfer, named in 1387, and Berchtold Krottendorfer, named in 1433, are among the better-known Jägermeisters. In 1461 the castle hat passed to Andreas Rindscheit. During the Baumkircher feud in 1469, the property was attacked, captured and plundered by mercenaries hired by Andreas Baumkircher . However, they could not defend themselves against Pankraz Rindscheit and the imperial troops who supported him for long. After the rebuilding, the estate was first referred to as a castle in 1480. Emperor Friedrich III. had several fish ponds built.

After an invasion of passing Turks in 1532, the castle was dilapidated and had to be renovated. King Ferdinand I stayed at the castle during his visit to the Kainach Valley in 1536. From 1537 the princely forest master sat at the Gjaidhof. Between 1568 and 1570 Archduke Charles II commissioned the builder Marco Dionysio with the renovation and expansion of the castle, in which his court foreman Dionissio Tade also participated. The present appearance of the castle dates from that time. In 1596 a chalk fire station was set up on the castle grounds .

Until 1804 the property served the Habsburgs mainly as a hunting lodge due to its proximity to the Imperial Forest. In 1804 the palace became the private property of Count Ludwig Galler. He was succeeded by Karl Freiherr von Mandell and Ludwig Freiherr von Mandell in possession. Most of the adjacent Kaiserwald came into rural possession through a public auction in 1825. Until 1851 there were frequent changes in the castle owners before it was acquired by the Barons von Bonar. Rosalia Freiin von Bonar had major renovations carried out in 1878. The neo-Gothic architectural details and the western corner tower date from this period . After the end of the Second World War, the property went to the Countess Villavicencio. Since her two sons joined the Jesuit Order , she sold the Gjaidhof in 1959 to the Order of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Vincent de Paul . They restored the building and still maintain a private secondary school in it to this day.

layout

The castle is a one-story two-wing building with a high hipped roof and walled-in courtyard arcades that was previously surrounded by a defensive wall. The two wings are at right angles to each other. In the east there is a bay window with a turret and a neo-Gothic corner tower on the south-western corner of the building . A three-story bell tower is located in the southeast corner of the residential wing. A simple gate with a coat of arms leads through the crenellated boundary wall into the small inner courtyard. The two wings and the farm buildings surround a small courtyard. The former stable building in the north of the castle was expanded between 1960 and 1961 for school purposes.

In the castle there is a chapel consecrated to St. Mary, mostly modern . It has glass paintings made to a design by Toni Hafner and an exterior relief designed by Josef Pabst . The wooden figure of the risen Christ dates from around 1760 and is attributed to Balthasar Ferdinand Moll .

swell

• Federal Monuments Office (ed.): Dehio Steiermark (excluding Graz) . 2nd Edition. Berger, Horn / Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-85028-439-5 , p. 73 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Entry about Gjaidhof on Burgen-Austria
2. ↑ ^{a b c} The history of the market town of Dobl. (No longer available online.) Www.dobl.at, archived from the original on July 22, 2012 ; Retrieved October 27, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Federal Monuments Office (Ed.): Dehio Steiermark (excluding Graz) . 2nd Edition. Berger, Horn / Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-85028-439-5 , p. 73 .

Web links

Commons : Schloss Gjaidhof  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry via Gjaidhof on Burgen-Austria

Coordinates: 46 ° 56 ′ 52 "  N , 15 ° 22 ′ 37.9"  E