Polling Abbey, Gothic abbey in Polling, Germany

Polling Abbey is a former Benedictine and Augustinian monastery in Polling bei Weilheim, Upper Bavaria. Its surviving late Gothic church, now the parish church, has a pale beige stone facade with a rounded pediment and cross, three arched doorways, round and oval windows, and statues along the entablature. A tall square tower with a grey-green pyramidal roof and a black-and-white clock face stands to the right; a lower building with rectangular windows and a gabled roofline stands to the left.

Founded around 750 as a Benedictine monastery by the noble Huosi family, the abbey was converted into an Augustinian canons community in the 12th century. This shift in religious order shaped the place for centuries that followed.

The abbey church, now the parish church Heilig Kreuz, keeps early Baroque stucco by Georg Schmuzer and pipe organs built by Simon Hayl in the 1620s. The church became a pilgrimage destination in the 13th century as Ziel der Wallfahrten "Zum Kreuz". A carved Madonna by Hans Leinberger dates from about 1526.

The abbey church of Heilig Kreuz now serves as Polling's parish church and is the main surviving structure on the former monastic site. The Polling library hall, restored between 1970 and 1975, can be visited by arrangement with the Verein der Freunde des Pollinger Bibliotheksaals e.V. The hospice occupies part of the remaining convent buildings, while the former dispensary wing and service buildings are privately owned and not open to visitors.

The abbey's library hall, restored between 1970 and 1975, can be visited through the Verein der Freunde des Pollinger Bibliotheksaals. In 1803 the library held 88,000 volumes; about 20,000 went to Munich's court library and 7,000 to Ingolstadt, the rest was sold as waste paper. Thomas Mann gave the abbey traits of the monastery called Pfeiffering in Doktor Faustus.