Thurnmühle

The Thurnmühle is a small Baroque palace in Schwechat, a town in Lower Austria. It sits beside the Schwechat river, on Schloßmühlstraße. The building began as a fortified site in the 12th century, when it was called de Prato. Later it became known as Porz and was owned by the lords of Ebersdorf. After repeated destruction in the 14th and 16th centuries, it was rebuilt in the late 17th century by Count Karl Maximilian von Thurn und Valsassina. The palace is arranged around a square courtyard and has two storeys. A projecting entrance block on the north-west side contains a chapel on its upper floor. The north-east façade features a pilaster-framed basket-arched door with a curved hood and side vases. A double-headed eagle in a cartouche dates from about 1745. Inside, some vaulted rooms survive, though their layout has been altered by later partitions. The chapel is a single-bay space with a cross-ribbed vault and gilded stucco decoration. Its spandrels hold reliefs of saints including Josef, Jakobus, Leopold and Ambrosius. The altarpiece, painted by Josef Ignaz Mildorfer in the mid-18th century, shows several saints before the Holy Trinity. Outside, part of the old enclosing wall remains, with the main gate featuring a basket arch and a statue of Jakobus. A fragment of the Orientalische Compagnie’s coat of arms from 1767 is still visible on the pedestal.