Gurhof Castle

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The manor house of Gurhof Castle

The Gurhof Castle is a castle-like raised hide in the field of Gansbach , a cadastral of the Lower Austrian market town Dunkelsteinerwald , about 16 kilometers northwest of St. Pölten in Mostviertel . The Grade II listed property went from a former farmyard of the pin Göttweig out that in the last quarter of the 15th century by Göttweiger pen captain had been built Jörg Hasiber Hag. After the monastery bought the property in 1630, extensive extensions and renovations began, which did not end until the 18th century. Today Gurhof Castle is privately owned and can only be viewed from the outside at public events.

history

Jörg Hasiber von Hag, the Göttweig monastery governor, built a first building in the period from 1483 to 1493 on the territory of the Wolfstein estate . Since the rulership at that time belonged to the Bavarian ducal house , half of the Gurhof was probably a Bavarian fief and the other half was freely owned by the client. In 1515 the noble seat came to Stephan Mühlwanger before it was acquired by Hans Geyer von Osterburg in 1549. In 1582 Ludwig von Starhemberg inherited the property, but was unable to pay the tax burden on it. The Geyer family then took over the settlement of the tax debts, so that the von Starhemberg family did not actually take over the Gurhof until 1615.

In 1619 the property shared the fate of all Starhemberg possessions: it was confiscated by Emperor Ferdinand II after the Protestant Ludwig von Starhemberg refused to pay homage to him. The following year, the property came as a pledge to the pin Göttweig that could finally acquire him in 1629 by purchase. The then Abbot Georg II. Falbius from Göttweig bought the feudal sovereignty over half of the Gurhof from the Bavarian Duke Maximilian I , so that from 1630 it was the sole property of the monastery. George II also had the property expanded and rebuilt. The chapel on the property, for example, goes back to him as the client . After the monastery had acquired the entire Wolfstein lordship, it also relocated its administrative headquarters from Wolfstein Castle to the more conveniently located Gurhof Castle.

Under one of Georg's successors, Abbot Gottfried Bessel , the building was expanded and converted into a symmetrical baroque palace between 1723 and 1731 with the participation of the master builder Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt , which remained in the monastery until 1970. From 1948 to 1968, however, the monastery leased the building to the Stein penal institution, which had it renovated in the 1950s, giving it its present-day, sober appearance. In 1970 Göttweig sold the castle to the Commerce Councilor Rudolf Pisec, whose family still owns the property today. The mansion serves as the residence of the owners.

In the western area of ​​the complex there are farm buildings and guest apartments as well as employee apartments, while the eastern castle area is mainly used by an equestrian center. Some rooms of the property, which is being marketed as a film location, can be rented for private events and celebrations. In addition, there are some public events taking place on the castle grounds, which are the only way to see the complex from the outside.

description

Gurhof Castle is about 1.5 kilometers south of the Gansbach town center, directly on the road from Gansbach to Kicking. The elongated complex consists of a centrally located mansion with a large courtyard of honor in front of it to the south and commercial tracts to the west and east. It occupies an area of ​​about 210 × 80 meters. To the north of this - separated from the main house by a dry ditch - lies a spacious area surrounded by a pillar wall with the remains of a former garden . The medieval seat of the Göttweig monastery governor no longer exists, but old structures may have been integrated into the current buildings.

architecture

In the center of the palace complex is the manor house, consisting of a three-storey central wing with a crooked roof and narrower side wings with an L-shaped floor plan that adjoin it to the east and west. The two storeys of the side wings are closed off by a hipped roof that rests on a profiled eaves cornice . In some areas there is a frieze consisting of diamonds and rectangles. The corners of the wings are emphasized by corner blocks and stand out from the light ocher paint of the building. The current design of the south facade on the central tract probably goes back to the building activity after the property was taken over by the Göttweig monastery in the 17th century. It is dominated by two slender square towers in front of the facade, the masonry of which is only slightly higher than that of the building. Their slightly bent helmets in the form of a tent roof with crowning weather vanes have only been in their possession since the 1970s, when their roofs and the top two floors were removed. Between the two towers is the central axis of the house the rectangular portal with a Hood Mold on Pilaster stumps. It is by far not as elaborately designed as the portal of the palace chapel, which is located in the eastern part of the central wing. The inclined pilasters of the chapel portal bear a roof and the coats of arms of the Göttweig abbot Johannes V. Dizent and the Göttweig monastery. Above that, a large oval window illuminates the interior of the chapel.

A concave-convex curved pillar wall is attached to the outer corners of the side wings and surrounds the courtyard. It can be entered via a late Baroque arched gate in the middle on the south side of the wall. The gate with wrought iron gates has a stone tail gable with the year 1724 and a ball top.

To the east and west of the Ehrenhof there are two symmetrical economic areas with an approximate horseshoe shape that surrounds an inner courtyard. The low buildings have only one storey and are covered by crooked roofs. Some of their windows have window baskets . A three-storey gate tower with a tent roof in the middle of the west and east wing allows admission to both courtyards . The dates 1716 and 1955 can be found above the arched portal of the western gate tower. It used to be decorated with a painted sundial . The stables of the equestrian facility and guest apartments in the tower building are located in the service wing to the east.

inside rooms

The rather inconspicuous main portal of the mansion leads to a central staircase behind it. From there you get to the first floor, with its lancet and barrel vaults . In a small hall on this floor, stucco work from the first half of the 18th century has been preserved. The ceiling of the hall shows a curved mirror , tendril stucco and a cartouche depicting St. Benedict and Göttweig Abbey. Historical stucco work has also been preserved on the second floor. One room there shows a curved ceiling mirror with stucco eagles. The furnishings date from around the middle of the 18th century.

The chapel hall in the eastern area of ​​the central building of the manor house is perpendicular to the main axis of the building. It has three yokes of which the middle one is the widest. The room, designed between 1672 and 1689, is two storeys high. Its flat barrel vault has a stucco frame and shows a painting depicting the Eye of God surrounded by a halo. The existing oratorio grille is part of the original furnishings and therefore comes from the Baroque era.

literature

Web links

Commons : Gurhof Castle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bundesdenkmalamt (Ed.): Lower Austria - immovable and archaeological monuments under monument protection. January 23, 2019, p. 58 ( PDF ; 1.3 MB).
  2. ↑ a b Entry about Gurhof Castle in Burgen-Austria , accessed on September 23, 2019.
  3. ↑ a b Gerhard Reichhalter : Gurhof. 2007, p. 86.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Bundesdenkmalamt (Ed.): Dehio-Handbuch. Lower Austria south of the Danube. Part 1, 2003, p. 518.
  5. ↑ a b c d Gerhard Reichhalter : Gurhof. 2007, p. 87.
  6. ↑ a b Schloss Gurhof on the website of the Lower Austrian Film Commission , accessed on 23 September 2019.
  7. ↑ Hans Tietze: The monuments of the political district Melk. 1909, p. 58.
  8. ↑ Hans Tietze: The monuments of the political district Melk. 1909, p. 59.

Coordinates: 48 ° 17 '32 "  N , 15 ° 28' 4.4"  E