Schloss Ginselberg

Schloss Ginselberg stands on a small terrace above a tufa quarry in the Erlauftal valley, southwest of the Neustift works settlement near Scheibbs in Lower Austria. It belongs to the high-aristocratic Schönfeldt family. The building began as a hammer mill on a quarter-lehen site before becoming a mirror factory in 1827. In 1863 the factory was converted into a grand residence by Anton Reichsgraf von Schönfeldt. The Schönfeldts enlarged the estate to about 350 hectares and laid out a park that still exists in altered form. A chapel was added in 1881 but removed after the Second World War. The castle served as a military hospital during the war. Heinrich Graf Schönfeldt, born at Ginselberg in 1884 and a pioneer motorist and early tank driver, lived here until his death in 1963. The castle has remained in the family since 1863. The broad two-storey building under a hipped roof has a central and side projections. Inside, rooms have flat ceilings and some vaulted arcades on the ground floor. A former outbuilding now houses a Buddhist centre founded in 1975, one of the oldest in the German-speaking world. The estate also includes stables, a manor house and smaller properties scattered around the valley.