Bründlwagner

The Bründlwagner stands beside a healing spring in the village of Spielau, just south of the Maria Schutz pilgrimage church in Bad Leonfelden. The two-storey building was first a wooden bathing hut in 1662, then a stone bath-house in 1709, and was rebuilt in 1833 by the carpenter Ignaz Scheucher. Later owners added a brewery and, in 1878, Karl Wagner turned part of it into a dye-works. The Lebzelter Franz Kastner opened a Moor bath here in 1881 under the name Franzensbad. The dye-works still operates today, turning cloth blue with the traditional Mühlviertler hand-blaudruck process. This craft has been recognised as an Austrian intangible cultural heritage since 2015 and inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List in 2018. Visitors can watch the artisans print patterns with wooden stamps and copper plates. The building itself shows vaulted ceilings and a segmental arch doorway dated 1834. From the street the house looks like any other village inn, yet inside the scent of indigo lingers. Upstairs the former guest rooms remain, while the ground floor holds the dyeing vats and printing tables. Outside, the spring still bubbles beside the path to the pilgrimage church.