Schlosskapelle Hagenau

The Schlosskirche hl. Nikolaus stands in the Hagenau castle park west of Schloss Hagenau in St. Peter am Hart, a village in Upper Austria’s Braunau district. A modest late-Gothic nave joins a narrower, equally high choir with a polygonal end, and a tower rises from the southern choir corner. The chapel has been under official protection since the 19th century. Its first written mention dates from 1187, yet the present building was consecrated in 1515. In 1727–28 the windows were reshaped, internal wall ribs were altered, and a new ceiling inserted. A Salzburg organ-builder, Ludwig Mooser, installed an 1850 instrument with a Venetian-style flat front, three fields, round arches and pilasters. The altar itself, a 1881 neo-Baroque structure, carries a painting of Saints Nicholas, Barbara and Mary Magdalene. Visitors enter a small three-bay nave and find the choir directly ahead, its ribs and bosses still legible. The tower holds a single bell, rung only for services. The organ, rebuilt in 2012 by Andreas Kaltenbrunner, speaks again with one manual, pedal and six stops. Outside, the castle park offers lime and chestnut avenues leading back to the village street.