Schloss Waldreichs

Schloss Waldreichs stands on open farmland between the Ottenstein reservoir and the Allentsteig training ground in Lower Austria. Built as a four-wing irregular complex with an outer gatehouse and farmyard, it has been under preservation orders for decades. The nearest village is Pölla, a few kilometres to the west. First recorded in 1258, the castle was rebuilt after a siege in the 1440s by Hans Harrasser. Eustach Stodoligk turned it into a moated water castle in the 1530s, adding towers, a chapel and a fortified farmstead. After changing hands many times it passed to Heinrich von Pereira-Arnstein in 1815 and later to the Windhag Foundation, which has restored it since 1983. Today it houses the Ottenstein forest office and the Lower Austrian Falconry and Birds of Prey Centre with an owl park. Inside the courtyard, three round towers and a square east tower rise three or four storeys, their roofs steep and conical. A ruined east wing and a late-Gothic gate in the south-east wall show the medieval core. The restored north-east wing has a stair-gable and a vaulted passage, while the outer gatehouse, built in 1563, shelters a smithy and a room with star-vaulting. The castle chapel, rebuilt in 1669, keeps fragments of a 1721 baroque altar. Outside, a sandstone statue of St John of Nepomuk on a curved pedestal marks the entrance of 1717.