Ventlinge Church, dedicated to St. Lawrence, was built during the first half of the 1100's. It began as a towerless vestibule church of Romanesque style. Around the year 1200, a defensive tower entirely on its own grounds was added. Above the staircase entrance in the porch is a throw shaft straight up through the wall. Church defenders could also stand on the tower’s second floor and throw stones at unwelcome visitors. In 1812, the church was repaired and rebuilt so its medieval character was lost. The lantern was added to the tower in 1825.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.