Stadtbefestigung Ybbs an der Donau

The city fortifications of Ybbs an der Donau stand along the river in the Lower Austrian town of the same name. Built in the 13th and 14th centuries, the scheme once included a wall, towers, a moat and an earth rampart. A flood in 1488 damaged parts that were repaired by 1496. The Wiener Tor was swept away in 1862 and its remains burned in 1868, while the Sandtor and Klostertor were removed in the 1880s. What remains today includes the 1480 Pulverturm, a round tower of rubble masonry with small rectangular windows in the south-east corner of the old town. Beside it stands the half-round bastion that once guarded the Wiener Tor, now partly built into a house on Wiener Straße. At the north-west corner the Schwalleck bastion and wave-breaker still show the former sluice that filled the moat with water from the Danube. A deep moat runs outside the surviving stretches of wall, enclosing the old town in a wide half-circle. Fragments of the Linzer Tor can be seen on Burgplatz, while other sections of the wall are embedded in buildings along Kirchengasse. The fortifications give a clear sense of how the town once defended itself from both land and river.