Lechenburg castle

In 1295 Ulrich Schenk von Rabenstein donated to the bishop of Seckau estate worth ten marks, located in Göttling (Gotlike). Among these estates, which Rabenstein received back as an episcopal fief, was a farm at Dexenberg. As late as 1434, a “Purchstall,” i.e. the location of an abandoned fortified building, is mentioned in documents relating to that farm. In the late Middle Ages the owners changed frequently – they were the Weisseneckers, Perneggers, Stubenbergs, Mörspergs and Raubers – before the lords of Breuner connected the farms in Göttling and Dexenberg with the Mallerhof, later Eybesfeld Castle, and handed out the associated land to farmers for use. It is not yet clear from historical documents when exactly the castle was abandoned.

The medieval fortress, popularly called “Lechenburg” (probably after the legal title of the mentioned episcopal fief), is still clearly recognizable on a mountain spur oriented from west to east above Göttling. In the west, from where the castle was accessed, a prominent ditch separates the hinterland from the castle grounds. In the east, the castle had moved directly to the steep slope; the plateau was surrounded on the other sides by a ditch, on the outer edge of which a still faintly recognizable rampart runs. On the west side, the ditch was also accompanied by a rampart on the inside. The hollow ways north and south of the castle site are probably further ditches or old ways. In the northeast of the plateau another ditch presumably enclosed the former residential tower of the castle. A square depression near the southwest corner of the residential tower may have been a cistern or well. Foundation stones from the tower and a ring wall were, locals tell us, used as building material in the surrounding area over centuries, including for the new construction of Lang’s parish church around 1700.