Photo: Alpbachtal Tourismus

Burgruine Kropfsberg

Reith im Alpbachtal, Tyrol

burgführung

One of the largest castle ruins is located in the municipality of Reith im Alpbachtal directly on the federal road near St. Gertraudi. The only castle with three towers. The advanced keep in the west, the Romanesque high castle with two keeps, a curtain wall and the residential building (Pflegehaus) which was once a gate tower. Kropfsberg was a border fortress of the Archbishopric of Salzburg. The first constructions took place around 1147 and a palas conversion around 1217. The first documented mention was in 1296. The Pflegehaus was not built until around 1753. The middle tower was hit by a bomb in 1945 but was later rebuilt. Current owners are the family Dkfm. H. Vogl-Fernheim. The castle, one of the most stately in the entire country, was built around 1200 or even earlier by the Archbishops of Salzburg to protect their possessions in the Zillertal and was administered by castellans and caretakers. The most striking feature of it are the three mighty, originally crenellated and uninhabitable towers, of which the advanced and separately walled main tower shows particularly careful and regular masonry, and which were later heightened with residential floors in the others.