Eschelberg Castle

Eschelberg Castle in St. Gotthard im Mühlkreis, Austria, began as a medieval hilltop stronghold first recorded in 1209 and was transformed around 1598 into a Renaissance-style residence. Early occupants were local nobles who held the site as a feudal holding under larger regional authorities, and across the centuries the estate functioned as a local seat of lordship and judicial administration.

The earliest named owner was Hainricus de Esilberch in 1209, a member of the local noble milieu who served as a vassal to the Bavarian count of Leonberg. In 1283 the ministerial Otto von Traun received the fief, and by 1354 the lordship belonged to Hans von Traun, who later became provincial governor of Upper Austria. During the 1300s overlordship shifted away from the Leonberg counts to the Bishopric of Passau.

In 1560 the estate passed into the hands of the Lords of Gera, a family from Carinthia, after it had been taken into the holdings of the Austrian territorial prince. Members of the von Gera family rebuilt the medieval stronghold into the Renaissance castle that largely defines the present plan. Christoph von Gera died in 1609; his son Erasmus II von Gera (1588–1657) was arrested as a Protestant rebel, later converted to Catholicism, and kept Eschelberg while divesting other family properties. On 31 March 1654 Erasmus sold Eschelberg and the nearby manor of Lichtenhag to Konrad Balthasar von Starhemberg (1612–1687). Thereafter Eschelberg was managed together with Rottenegg, Oberwallsee and Lichtenhag as a single estate and counted 313 inhabitants under that administration. The castle remained in Starhemberg ownership thereafter.

Administratively, the castle’s jurisdiction extended into the surrounding countryside. Until the mid-1800s the locality of Oberwallsee, under Eschelberg’s authority, formed one of twelve district courts in the Upper Mühlviertel; Eschelberg’s jurisdiction included Feldkirchen an der Donau, Goldwörth, St. Gotthard im Mühlkreis, Herzogsdorf, St. Martin and Walding. After World War II refugees were housed in the buildings. A lightning strike in 1962 set the main tower alight and the tower burned out. The complex underwent renovation in 2010, and the grounds have since been made available for hire for events.