Perchtoldsdorf#

Perchtoldsdorf, Lower Austria, market town in the district of Moedling, alt. 265 m, pop. 14,051, area 12.59 km2, summer resort (51,185 overnight stays in 1992), wine growing area and residential suburb situated at the southwestern border of Vienna, where the Vienna Woods slopes towards the Vienna Basin. - Cultural and educational centre, recreation resort and sports centre, youth centre, sports hall, water works, Bundesgymnasium and Bundesrealgymnasium secondary schools, Lower Austrian provincial infant nursery at Schwedenstift monastery; Perchtoldsdorf Summer Festival takes place every year in July, Vienna's first Spring Water Supply System (1. Wiener Hochquellenleitung). - In 1991 the services sector employed about 73 % of the 3,673 employed persons, mainly commercial activities, production of adhesive tapes, car equipment, bathroom accessories and dyes, candle factory, textile industry, publishing houses, wine growing. - Documented mention after 1130, economic flowering during the Middle Ages, destroyed by the invading Turks in 1683. Three-nave parish church in Gothic style (14th and 15th centuries), hall church with three choirs, rib vaults, lower church, decoration in Baroque style (beginning of the 18th century), forming the central feature of a fortified complex which also contains the ruins of a ducal castle (the nucleus dating back to the 12th century, other parts from the 14th to the 16th centuries, it now contains the municipal cultural centre), other parts of the complex are the free-standing defensive tower (15th century, 45 m high, six storeys, now a museum, with monument to T. Ebendorfer) and late-Gothic chapel of St. Martin (charnel house dating back to 1514, now war memorial chapel). Hospital church (around 1400). Reliefs and statues of the plague monument on the market square (1713) are by J. B. Fischer von Erlach. Town hall (end of the 15th century) with arcaded courtyard, Renaissance burgher houses and Knappenhof mansion (18th century); Hugo Wolf museum in his former residence, fire-brigade museum. Buschenschenken (simple wine taverns selling new wine during limited periods of the year, when a bundle of twigs is displayed). Wine harvest festivities accompanied by traditional customs such as the guardians' procession with "Hiatapritschn" taking place on the Sunday after St. Leonhard's feast-day (November 6). The Perchtoldsdorf heath, on a slope near the village, has a small conservation area (since 1943).

Literature#