William Tell in Bürglen

27 July 2021

The village of Bürglen (canton of Uri) was first mentioned in a charter of 857 under the name “Burgilla”. The village of William Tell (Wilhelm Tell) is considered to be one of the oldest settlements in Uri.

In this year, King Ludwig the German (806-876) donated the chapel together with serfs, fields, meadows and woods to the priest Berold, who for many years had faithfully served the king’s daughter Hildegard, abbess of the monastery of St. Felix and Regula (today’s Fraumünster in Zurich).

The Baroque parish church of St. Peter and Paul, built in 1684, has a domed hall that cannot be seen from the outside. The interior has beautiful altars and early Baroque stucco.

The tower is from the Romanesque predecessor. On the outside there are decorative paintings: St. Christoffel, Willem Tell and the inscription “Gott und Fryheit”.

On the village square there are two round chapels: the Ossuary and the Chapel of the Mount of Olives from 1693. The monument of Tell (Tellbrunnen) and the chapel of Tell are on or near the church square.

The sculpture Tell with son by the sculptor Josef Jakob Scolar was the first Tell monument in Altdorf. It was donated to Bürglen by Altdorf. It used to stand on a fountain pillar in this place.

The Wattigwylerturm from the 13th century houses the Tell museum. The museum shows how the Tell idea spread around the world (www.tellmuseum.ch).

The 10 km long Chapel Route leads past eleven chapels in and around Bürglen.