Pfarrkirche Höhenberg

The parish church of Höhenberg stands in the village of Höhenberg, part of the market town of Großdietmanns in Lower Austria. It is dedicated to Saint James the Elder and belongs to the Gmünd deanery in the Diocese of St Pölten. The building and the old cemetery around it are protected monuments. The church began as a Romanesque structure in the 13th century with a west tower and a Gothic choir. A vicariate is recorded in 1280 and a parish existed by 1332. In 1739 three altars were consecrated. The churchyard remained until 1804, when the cemetery was moved. A major restoration took place in 1955. The square west tower has round-headed sound windows and a pyramid roof added after a fire in 1800 and heightened in 1845. The plain three-bay nave with round-headed windows gained buttresses when it was vaulted in 1575. The narrower two-bay Gothic choir ends in three sides of an octagon and is linked on the east side to the parish house rebuilt around 1800. Thin triangular buttresses and fragments of two-light tracery windows from the early 1500s survive, along with a later round-headed window on the north side. A Baroque sacristy was added to the south of the choir. Under the eaves on the north wall four painted coats of arms can be seen. The organ, built in 1912 by Franz Capek, has six stops housed in a Rococo case.