Schloss Pöllan

Schloss Pöllan stands unfinished on a gentle rise above the Gailtaler Alps in southern Kärnten, two kilometres from the Tauernautobahn. Built as a 16th-century meierhof, its red-brown stone portal and two hexagonal corner towers still show the original construction holes. The building never reached its planned height, and its attic floor remains incomplete. A smoke-blackened vault in the entrance hall marks the former smoke kitchen. The attached farm once stretched across Marswiese until the late 19th century. The castle’s story is tied to the Reformation and its defeat. Christoph Haidenreich, a Protestant administrator, began the structure around 1600 but was forced to sell in 1616 after clashes with the Catholic authorities. The Khevenhüller family then owned it until their own exile in 1628. Later it passed to the Widmann counts and finally to the Foscari-Widmann-Rezzonico line. Traces of early mining and medieval settlement surround the site. Visitors find a quiet, square two-storey building under a plain roof, its walls rising straight from the sloping ground. The two finished towers frame the entrance, while the other two remain stubs. Beyond the portal lies the vaulted entrance hall with soot-stained ribs. The surrounding meadows and nearby Weißenbach stream recall the old gold-washing works and the hallstatt burial mounds nearby.