Burg Pernegg

The ruin occupies a ridge that drops steeply on both the east and west sides above the village. The complex survives as two main sections, an upper castle and a lower castle. The lower ward dates to the fourteenth century and was protected by a continuous defensive wall that today still reaches about eight meters in height. From this lower enclosure a square tower still stands.

Approach to the core of the stronghold led through successive earthworks and ditches. The main gate to the upper castle was defended by a curtain wall reinforced with projecting towers, and the access was interrupted by a series of defensive trenches. Between the second and third ditch the remains of a barbican survive, preserved as a ruined outwork that once guarded the approach.

Inside the upper ward a long castle courtyard was enclosed by residential ranges, with the eastern side surviving only as fragments of wall. The main residential hall was built adjoining the central keep, indicating the usual arrangement of living quarters attached to the principal defensive tower. On the side that faced the principal attack, to the northwest, a semicircular shield wall was erected; this wall was constructed with strength sufficient to resist artillery, reflecting adaptation to later military developments.

Much of the medieval fabric was removed in the sixteenth century for reuse at the new palace at Pernegg, and the site today is heavily overgrown and in a ruined condition. The standing elements — the lower ward’s ring wall, the surviving square tower, the curtain wall line with towers, the barbican fragment, the courtyard walls and the semicircular shield wall — present the archaeological record of the castle’s phases of defense and habitation.