Unterthurm (Vestenthurn) Castle

The present-day ruin of Unterthurm is the remnant of the old Veste Turn, which possibly dates back to a defensive structure of the Magyar March. However, the sparse documentary evidence about the castle only begins in the late High Middle Ages. The residence was home to a minor noble family.

In 1212, a Heinrich von St. Christophen is mentioned as a notary to Otto von Lengenbach, who presumably lived in Turn. The first confirmed mention of the castle occurred in 1246 with "Leutoldus castellanus in Turri". In the 14th century, the Knights of Seebach held the fortress as a princely fief. Jörg Seebeck, who owned Turn in 1386, was also a bailiff at Neulengbach Castle. In 1401, Stephan Fronauer appears as a vassal of the Wallseer in Altlengbach and Turn.

Already in 1418, a Stephan Seebeck was again residing in Thurn. In 1455, Knight Hans von Ladendorf acquired the lordship. After the extinction of his family, the Reicker family inherited the castle. It was severely damaged in the devastating earthquake of 1590 but was soon restored. After the death of the last Reicker, Turn came to a collateral line of the Counts of Hardegg around 1613. August Graf Hardegg, Lord of Thurn, was chamberlain to Archduke Maximilian and a councilor of the Lower Austrian Court Chamber. With Georg Bernhard, the Turn line of the Hardegg counts died out in 1682, but the lordship had already been sold to Christoph Johann Graf Althan a year earlier. After the destructions of the Turkish year 1683, the castle was no longer restored and fell into ruin.

Via Johann Karl Graf Kuefstein, Turn came to Johann Paul Bartolotti von Partenfeld in 1713. His brothers and successors had to sell Turn in 1740 due to bankruptcy. The owners who followed were Prince Theodor Konstantin Lubomirski, Karl Abraham Wetzlar von Plankenstein, and in 1797 Moritz Graf Fries. In 1828, the Princes of Liechtenstein took over Turn along with the lordship of Neulengbach. Around 1885, the "Knightly Order of the Green Humpen" in Vienna and "of the Silver Humpen" in Neulengbach leased the ruin. In 1902, a Neulengbach businessman, who called himself "Knight of Kornthal", leased the tower. Unterthurm today belongs to the Princes of Liechtenstein in Dietersdorf, who, however, have rented out the tower.