Schloss Thurnhof

Schloss Thurnhof stands in the village of Maria Thurn, near Hermagor in the Gail valley of southern Austria. It began as a small medieval fortress, built to guard the road through Gitschtal or to protect the nearby Grünburg. The first written mention of a tower here dates from 1342, but the building itself is older, since the neighbouring church of Maria Thurn, first recorded in 1261, once served as its chapel. A stone above the church altar bears the date 1570 and the arms of the Grössing family, who owned the site for much of the 17th century. The oldest part is a four-storey square tower of rough-hewn stone, each side about six metres long. The lower two floors are still lived in, while the upper storeys show the scars of later uses. Attached to the tower is a two-storey farmhouse built in the late 16th century. Inside, a parlour keeps its original timber ceiling, dated 1593, and on the south wall fragments of a Renaissance sgraffito frame survive around a blocked window. After passing through several noble and clerical hands, the building was bought in the 19th century by the Lampersberger family, who still care for it today. Visitors walk past the church and enter a quiet courtyard where the tower and house meet. The rough stone walls and small barred windows recall its early role as a place of defence. Inside the parlour, the carved date and the faded sgraffito patterns speak of Renaissance comforts added long after the tower’s first years. Beyond the buildings, the Gail valley stretches away, its slopes covered in meadows and scattered woods, the same landscape that once shaped the fortress’s purpose.