Burg Hardegg / Castle Hardegg - Hardegg (Waldviertel, Niederösterreich) - Official Local Tourism Attractions on Waymarking.com

Romanesque-Gothic castle Hardegg rises high above the valley of the river Thaya and dominates the small town of the same name. The castle is a popular destination for Czech and Austrian tourists from the Czech-Austrian borderlands. Burg Hardegg is an Austrian listed building by Bundesdenkmalamt.

The name of the castle is derived from the Old High German word hard = forest, -egg = rock, stone, and in the figurative sense, "solid house in the forest". The first written mention of the castle appears in 1145 in a document of Elisabeth von Schleunz, where Otto de Hardeck is mentioned as a witness to the donation, but at that time it was only a small fortification. The first owners were the Counts von Plain und Hardegg. After the extinction of this family, the castle passed to the Lords of the Maidburg-Hardegg. This family rebuilt the castle to a large fortress with 5 defensive towers and 7 gates. Over time, they connected the fortress with the town dlowly grosing below the castle. The Maidburg-Hardegg family owned the castle until 1481.

Various owners followed in the next years, and the castle also briefly passed into the possession of the ruling Habsburgs. They sold it, together with the title Reichsgraf (Imperial Count), to the Counts of Prüschenk. The castle was almost destroyed by a large fire in 1506, although Heinrich Count von Hardegg began the reconstruction, but the whole project was so financially demanding that the Hardeggs were finally forced to sell the castle.

During the 17th century, the castle became the property of the French counts of Saint-Julien-Walsee, who owned it for three generations. The Hardegg and Riegersburg demesnes were bought in 1730 by the Sigmund Friedrich Reichsgraf von Khevenhüller. At that time, however, the castle was no longer permanently inhabited and served only as a hunting refuge. Since then, Hardegg Castle has remained in the hands of the Princes von Khevenhüller-Metsch.

Hardegg was destroyed by a devastating earthquake in 1755 and moreover the castle was asl odamaged by a large fire in 1764. For this reasons, the owner of the estate, Johann Josef Prince Khevenhüller-Metsch, authorized the use of the ruined part of the castle as a source of building material to rebuild town. The castle thus became a real ruin. After more than a hundred years (1878), Johann Carl Prince Khevenhüller-Metsch decided to rebuild the castle. The castle was repaired and reconstructed in the style of so-called late historicism, which returned to it the Romanesque-Gothic appearance. During the reconstruction works, a family tomb was built in the castle chapel, and the eastern tower and the knight's hall were also restored. After the death of Johann Carl in 1905, his nephew, Prince Anton Sigismund Khevenhüller, succeeded him, who completed the reconstruction of the castle. Today, Hardegg Castle belongs to the direct descendants of the Khevenhüller-Metsch family, the Counts of Pilati von Thassul zu Daxberg, whose family comes from Trentino. The current owner of the castle is Count Pilati.

Source: excerpted and translated from Wikipedia

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