Stephanshart

Stephanshart ( village ) ; locality ; cadastral community Stephanshart
	Basic data
Pole. District , state	Amstetten (AM), Lower Austria
Judicial district	Amstetten
Pole. local community	Ardagger
Coordinates	48 ° 9 '31 " N , 14 ° 49' 4" E Coordinates: 48 ° 9 '31 " N , 14 ° 49' 4" E
height	236 m above sea level A.
Residents of the village	1058 (January 1, 2020)
Building status	249 (2001)
Area d. KG	17.22 km²
	Statistical identification
Locality code	03180
Cadastral parish number	03039
Counting district / district	Stephanshart (30503 003)
	Source: STAT : index of places ; BEV : GEONAM ; NÖGIS

BW

Stephanshart is located in the Mostviertel in Lower Austria and is part of the large municipality of Ardagger .

geography

The Stephanshart cadastral community consists of the center of the Rotten Empfing , Hundertleiten , Albersberg, Hebmannsberg, Hinterholz, Leitzing, Moos, Zeitlbach, the scattered settlement Hausleiten and several individual layers.

history

Stephanshart is first mentioned in a document in 1111 as “Stefinishart”. The name means "forest that belongs to St. Stephen's Cathedral in Passau". "Hart" is the Middle High German word for hard, firm forest floor. As known earlier and still clearly recognizable today, the Danube flowed past Stephanshart for centuries. At the time of the Crusades, the dangers of the Strudengau were already known. For this reason, there were a few landings in Ardagger as the last rest stop before the Strudengau, some of them in Stephanshart. Adhesive pegs, which were used to slow down and tie up the landing ships and rafts, were removed from the Zehethof land around 1880. Since 1787 the Danube has flowed a little further north and divides the Machland into a northern and a southern part.

The proximity to the Danube has been a blessing and a curse for many generations. However, increasing living standards and prosperity ultimately led to a unique resettlement campaign.

During the flood of the catastrophe in 1954, 62 houses were trapped in the water up to the ridge height and were virtually uninhabitable afterwards. In 1971, the Lower Austrian state government's largest relocation in Europe began in Stephanshart Au: In three stages, more than 50 properties were relocated to flood-proof areas. The resettlement campaign was expanded and accelerated by the floods of the century in 2002 and 2013. To commemorate this resettlement, a memorial stone was erected and inaugurated in 1992 to commemorate the former homes in the "Au".

church

Southeast view of the church

In 1497 the new building of a stone church was completed. This was a three-aisled hall church. It had a ribbed vault with decorative ribs on half-columns . At that time this house of God stood right next to the “Moar-Hof” in the middle of town. After years of unsuccessful attempts at stabilization and restoration due to the risk of slipping, this church had to be closed in 1957 and then blown up and demolished in 1962.

The new church was consecrated in 1959 and is a clearly structured structure with a spacious main nave and narrow aisles. The tower in the east with a pyramid roof crowns the main entrance. High, narrow arched windows let a lot of light into the room, which is spanned by a concrete coffered ceiling. Most of the artistic furnishings have been taken over from the old church. The choir wall shows a sgraffito by Robert Herfert from 1959. The Gothic font, the late Baroque side altar paintings, glass windows from the 19th century and an old church bell from 1573 come from the old church.

Beautification club

In the following years a new settlement was built around this church. In 1976 a beautification association was founded. In 1977/1978, Stephanshart won first prize in the flower decoration competition in Lower Austria and in 1980 the same European winner!