Peuerbach Castle

Schloss Peuerbach stands in the centre of the Upper Austrian town of Peuerbach, a remnant of a once grand Renaissance palace. The three two-storey wings form a horseshoe around a courtyard, their façades reshaped about 1830. The site began as a medieval water-burgh on a natural hill, its moat long since filled. The palace’s turbulent past includes fires, sieges and changes of ownership from the Schaunberg counts to the Starhembergs, Herbersteins and Batthyánys. In 1571 a blaze destroyed the library, archive and armoury; in 1626 peasant rebels torched the market and the castle. Later the Stratmanns united several lordships into one unbreakable estate, only for the Batthyánys to dismantle it in 1825. The community saved the shell in 1882 and turned it into a courthouse, school and finally a cultural hub. Visitors enter through a 1574 Renaissance portal guarded by life-size knight statues and the family crests of Schaunberg and Starhemberg. The courtyard holds a statue of Georg von Peuerbach, the town’s famed astronomer. Inside are the district court, a post office, the Bauernkriegsmuseum, the Landeskrippe and rotating exhibitions. The modern fourth wing houses the Melodium cultural centre and music school, its glass-roofed courtyard doubling as an event space.