Burg Wilhering

Burg Wilhering, also called Burg Ufer, once stood on a rocky outcrop high above the Danube near an old river crossing in the village of Wilhering in Upper Austria. Built in the second half of the 11th century, it served as the ancestral seat of the noble Wilhering-Waxenberg family. The first written mention as a ‘Castrum’ appears around 1146–49, linking it to a network of powerful local lords.

The site is significant for its role in medieval colonisation and church foundations. Ulrich I and his wife Otilia established the parish of Gramastetten in 1110, while Ulrich II and his brother Cholo II promoted the nearby Cistercian monastery, completed by 1146. After the family’s male line died out in 1154, their lands passed through marriage and inheritance to other dynasties, ending Wilhering’s era as a noble stronghold.

Today only earthworks remain between a bakery and a restaurant in Wilhering, marking the former castle’s core area of about 25 by 35 metres. Excavations revealed walls up to 1.3 metres thick and fragments of prehistoric, Roman and medieval pottery, including a 11th–12th-century decorated dish. The ruins lie quiet beside the river, their story told through scattered stones and the gentle rise of the old fortress mound.