Schloss Bertholdstein

Schloss Bertholdstein stands on a hilltop in Pertlstein, a village near Fehring in south-eastern Styria. The site rises about 360 metres above the surrounding land and drops away to east, west and north. First built in the 12th century as a watch-fort guarding the Raab valley, it was named after Berthold I of Emmerberg, a Styrian steward who raised the stone keep between 1170 and 1179. After the Emmerbergs lost the castle in the early 15th century, new owners enlarged it in the 16th and 17th centuries, adding an arcaded gallery and strong towers against Turkish raids. In 1871 Count Ladislaus Koszielski restored the decaying ruin in a romantic oriental style before the Benedictine nuns of St Gabriel moved in during 1920. The castle’s long arcaded wing is one of the longest in central Europe. A fortified outer ward on the south side protects the gatehouse, which still shows a 1582 coat of arms of Adam von Lengheim and a machicolation above the entrance. Inside, two irregular courtyards are linked by a 90-metre curtain wall with a round tower and a two-storey arcade from the 1660s. The former knights’ hall now holds a modern chapel with stained-glass windows by Sister Basilia Gürth, while the courtyard displays a life-size wooden statue of the Virgin from the 17th century. The adjoining church, rebuilt in the 15th century and restored in 1958, contains late-Gothic frescoes, a 1636 high altar and a 1700 portable organ once used in Pöllauberg. Visitors step into a broad courtyard framed by long ranges of buildings. The church’s south wall carries a painted protection scene of the Virgin sheltering the Lengheim family, dated 1761. Inside the church are fine epitaphs of the Lengheim family, including an elaborate tomb for Wolf von Lengheim who died in 1601. In the upper floor of the outer ward lies a 1403 tomb slab of Berthold of Emmerberg, brought here from Fehring parish church. The whole hilltop offers wide views across the vineyards and fields of the Raab valley.