Burgstall Haglau

The Burgstall Haglau is the faint remains of a small medieval stronghold in the Mühlviertel region of Upper Austria. It stands on a low hill about two hundred metres south-south-west of the Thurmbauer farm in Neudorf, a hamlet near Haslach an der Mühl. The site once belonged to a local noble family called Schluchs, who held it as a fief of the Rosenbergs in the late 16th century.

The place is worth a short detour for anyone interested in the region’s vanished castles. In 1581 Jeremias Schluchs is recorded as the first owner, and by 1604 the estate had passed to Georg Walter of Rohrbach. Later it may have gone to the Schwarzenbergs, but no trace of their occupation survives. Archaeologists once measured walls up to 1.7 m thick, built of dressed stone and sand mortar, and described a broad ditch and outer rampart that circled the mound.

Today the hilltop is covered by young trees and undergrowth, so the earthworks are hard to see. Even the deep ditches noted in the 1960s have been levelled by modern grading. Visitors walk through a quiet wooded lane to reach the site, where only a slight rise in the ground hints at the vanished tower. The Thurmbauer farm nearby offers a place to pause before continuing along the rural lanes of the Mühlviertel.