Austria's most wonderful castle with 14 gates
The existence of this castle was first chronicled back in the year 830. The Spanheimers granted the hereditary office of Cup-Bearer to the Osterwitzer family in 1209. The last of the family to have this title was caught during a Turkish incursion in 1475, dying in captivity and without heirs. Hochosterwitz reverted to the monarch, Emperor Frederick III. King Ferdinand I gave Osterwitz in pledge to the provincial governor, Christof Khevenhüller; In 1571, Georg Baron von Khevenhüller, likewise a provincial governor, purchased the castle, fortifying the castle due to the threat of Turkish attack, equipping it with a weapons arsenal and having 14 gates constructed between 1570 - 1586. For a castle entrance to be secured in so many ways is a great rarity in the field of castle construction. An old document actually lists the names of the individual gates.
Since this time, no further substantial structural changes were made. The castle has been owned by the Khevenhüllers without interruption ever since. In a decree from Georg Khevenhüller, dating back to 1576 and which can still be read on a marble slab in the castle courtyard, he states his explicit bequest that the castle remain in possession of his descendants and that they will be responsible for its preservation. The Khevenhüller family has always felt itself obliged to fulfil his wishes.
