Pfarrkirche Oberndorf an der Melk

The Catholic parish church of St Ägidius stands on the edge of a three-sided plateau above the Melk valley in the market town of Oberndorf an der Melk. Its present building mixes medieval and early Baroque styles after a remodelling around 1630–45. The church has been under official protection since the 20th century.

The church was once a branch of Ruprechtshofen, then a vicariate, before becoming an independent parish in 1782. From 1334 to 1782 it belonged to Gaming Charterhouse. Major works in 1979–80 restored the interior and added new porches. The building’s exterior shows plain plastered walls, round-arched windows with iron grilles and a late-Gothic tower with stepped buttresses.

Inside, a two-aisled hall has cross-ribbed vaults on wall and free-standing piers. The west gallery, rebuilt in 1979, rests on carved consoles. The high altar, a columned retable, shelters a Madonna from the 1620s flanked by statues of St Ägidius and St Thomas. The organ case dates from 1889, the pipes from 1982. Outside, a Roman gravestone of the 2nd century shows a girl’s bust between two doves.