Pfarrkirche hl. Nikolaus Neumarkt an der Ybbs

The parish church of Neumarkt an der Ybbs stands just north-west of the market square in the small town of Neumarkt an der Ybbs, a few kilometres from the Ybbs river in Lower Austria. It is dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Myra and has been under official protection since the 20th century. The building combines a late-Gothic nave and choir with a Romanesque core from the 12th and 13th centuries. The church survived repeated Ottoman raids in 1529, 1532 and 1683, a major fire in 1661, and the upheavals of the Reformation. A brotherhood of the Seven Sorrows of Mary was founded in 1378, dissolved in the Reformation period, and re-established in 1666. In the 1990s an architect named Wilhelm Zotti designed a modern northern extension that respects the historic fabric. Inside, the late-Gothic organ loft with its octagonal pillar and stellar ribbed vault was carefully removed and rebuilt in a nearby village church. The present organ was installed in 1994 by the Upper Austrian firm of St Florian. Four bells cast in 1949 hang in the tower. The church’s exposed Romanesque north wall shows a small round-arched window in rough-hewn stonework.