Colloredohaus Altböckstein

The Colloredohaus stands in Altböckstein, a historic mining settlement in the village of Böckstein near Bad Gastein in Salzburg. Built as the manager’s house for the local mining operation, it is a two-storey masonry building topped with a hipped roof. The structure shows typical baroque window detailing and a small bell tower moved here from the original manager’s house, now the parish priest’s residence. Above the main door is a coat of arms dated 1782 belonging to Archbishop Hieronymus von Colloredo. Altböckstein was laid out between 1741 and 1745 after an avalanche disaster, completed in 1764 as a planned baroque ensemble. The southern single-storey extension once housed the gold-washing plant built around 1750. After 1912 it served as a storehouse and still carries a tall baroque hipped roof with two rows of dormer windows. On the eastern side of the former washing shed another coat of arms, this one from 1750, belongs to Archbishop Andreas Jakob von Dietrichstein. Visitors find a carefully preserved example of 18th-century mining administration architecture. The main building’s entrance is marked by Colloredo’s coat of arms, while the adjoining wing shows the industrial past of gold processing. The entire settlement, with its uniform baroque style and slate roofs, gives a clear picture of how miners and officials once lived and worked in this high Alpine valley.