Pulkauer Bründl

The Pulkauer Bründl is a small pilgrimage site west of Pulkau in Lower Austria. It sits in a shallow, tree-covered hollow reached by a quiet country lane. A single baroque chapel marks the spot where a spring once drew local people to pray during a 17th-century plague quarantine. The spring’s reputation grew after a crippled boy was said to have been cured in 1699, and a wooden chapel was built in 1702. The present stone chapel was finished in 1724 under Abbot Karl Fetzer. In 1780 the site gained a papal indulgence for visitors on 2 July, the feast of the Visitation. The chapel survived Emperor Joseph II’s closure decrees thanks to the intervention of Abbot Benno Pointner of Vienna’s Schottenstift. Visitors enter a two-bay chapel with a three-sided apse and a small bell tower. Above the door a painted group shows the meeting at the Golden Gate. Inside, the altar holds the grace-image of Maria Bründl. Beside it stands a wooden open chapel from the 19th century, and a stone pulpit brought from Pulkau’s Holy-Blood church. A Lourdes grotto shelters the healing spring, while outdoor niches mark the Stations of the Cross. Two weathered boundary stones at the entrance still bear Pulkau’s twin-crest arms and the date 1651.