Schloss Ernstbrunn

Schloss Ernstbrunn stands in the woods north-west of Dörfles in the market town of Ernstbrunn, Lower Austria. The present building grew from a medieval core on a steep limestone spur that drops sharply towards the village. Over the centuries successive owners added Renaissance, Baroque and Classical wings, creating a long, four-courtyard complex. The oldest part is an elongated octagon of the 12th–13th centuries, its three-metre-thick curtain wall crowned by a four-storey keep. The castle is worth visiting for its layered history and surviving structures. Rudolf Graf von Sinzendorf’s early-Baroque forecourt of 1672–77 still carries his elaborate coat of arms above the main arch. Prosper von Sinzendorf’s 18th-century enlargement introduced a classical façade and a protestant chapel in the second courtyard. In the fourth courtyard stand a catholic chapel, a knights’ hall and the keep. The castle passed to the Reuss family in 1828 and remains their private residence. Visitors walk through the four ascending courtyards, each with its own character. The first courtyard is the medieval core on the rock, the second holds the clock tower and protestant chapel, the third the main residential block, and the fourth the catholic chapel and keep. Beyond the buildings the park spreads over sixty hectares, a mix of English landscape garden and Baroque garden relics. A hundred life-size stone figures from about 1700 were rediscovered in 1984–85, and the northern section now forms the Wildpark Ernstbrunn with the Wolf Science Center.