St. Anna im Felde, Pöggstall

St. Anna im Felde is a late-Gothic hall church standing on a hilltop encircled by a stream south-east of Pöggstall in Lower Austria. The building is protected as a listed monument and comprises a steep roof, a high-Gothic choir and a north tower. It belongs to the parish of Pöggstall and the deanery of Maria Taferl. The church was founded by Kremsmünster Abbey around 1135–40 and first recorded in 1179. After losing its parish status in 1810 it was abandoned and stripped, but restored between 1953 and 1979 under parish priest Franz Entner and district captain Karl Schöbl. Inside, the flat-ceilinged nave is divided into three unequal aisles by two columns and contains wall paintings of the Magi’s journey from about 1400. The narrow, one-bay choir has a five-sided apse and ribbed vault with two carved keystones. The high altar’s neo-Gothic retable holds late-Gothic relief figures of about 1480, including Anna selbdritt flanked by Barbara and Catherine. A 15th-century side chapel houses a crescent Madonna and a 17th-century painting of St Barbara’s beheading. The surrounding cemetery, enclosed by a stone wall, is entered through a richly profiled round-arched gate in the north-east.