Zellhof

Zellhof is a small group of farm buildings with a pilgrimage church, Maria Zellhof, belonging to Mattsee Abbey. It sits on a narrow strip of land between the Obertrumersee and Grabensee, part of the Trumerseen nature reserve in Salzburg’s lake district. The site has been shaped by the last ice age, leaving flat lakes bordered by reeds and moors. The place became a pilgrimage centre in the 15th century when a chapel dedicated first to Saint George and later to the Virgin Mary was granted an indulgence in 1458. By the late 17th century the site was famous for its healing spring and a copy of the Black Madonna of Altötting, attracting pilgrims whose crutches and wooden crosses are still kept in the church. Archaeologists found Romanesque foundations beneath the present Baroque building, showing the site was settled long before the first written record in 1453. Visitors walk past the massive 300-year-old lime tree, a protected natural monument with a crown 23 metres wide. The church itself has a Romanesque core under a Baroque shell, its choir walls showing traces of medieval wall painting. Nearby stands the two-storey former manor house, rebuilt after a fire in 1849 but still holding 17th-century vaults. The whole farmyard, once a hunting lodge for Salzburg’s prince-archbishops, now serves as an international Scout centre with dormitories and campgrounds.