Pöchlarn#

Poechlarn, Lower Austria, town in the district of Melk, alt. 216 m, pop. 3,523, area 17.96 km2, east of the confluence of the River Erlauf and the River Danube, in the middle of the Nibelungengau region; ship station, ferry. - Regional health insurance office, regional vocational school, refuse composting plant of the Lower Austrian institute of environmental protection, waterworks. 2,335 persons employed (in 1991), mainly industry and trade: glass factory, roofing tile factory, plastic window factory, animal feed works, concrete block production, market for building materials, central storehouse, carriers. - Roman castellum of Arelape (second half of the 1st to the 5th  century), first documented mention in 832, in the Nibelungenlied (around 1200) as "Bechelâren" seat of the legendary margrave Ruediger, Vogtei (administrative unit) of the Babenbergs, in 1267 mentioned as town, until 1803 in the possession of the diocese of Regensburg; in the Middle Ages engaged in the shipment of iron. - Gothic parish church, pier hall (1389-1429), remodelled in Baroque style in 1766, altar-piece by M. J. Schmidt, Roman stones; Gothic ossuary, today a chapel; cemetery chapel; renewed former Gothic church; two towers of the medieval fortification still extant; local heritage museum (established 1926) in the Welserturm tower (1484); Renaissance houses; Poechlarn moated castle (16th  century) with keep, reconstructed in the 18th and early 19th  centuries. Exhibition on Oskar Kokoschka in the house where he was born; Nibelungen monument.

Literature#