State Park Princely Camp

Map of Bensheim with the Fürstenlager State Park east of Auerbach

Manor house of the royal camp

'Gesundbrunnen' fountain and guard house in February 2006

The Goethe fountain outside the prince camp in 1850

The Goethe fountain in Bensheim Hochstädten today

Guard house in the royal camp

The Hermitage in the Princely Camp

The interior of the foreign building

The friendship stamp opposite the mansion

The State Park Fürstenlager (also Fürstenlager Auerbach ) is the former summer residence of the Landgraves and Grand Dukes of Hessen-Darmstadt in Bensheim - Auerbach an der Bergstrasse, built around 1790 . It is under the administration of the State Palaces and Gardens of the State of Hesse .

In the approximately 46 hectare park , which is laid out around a mineral well, there are stately houses, monuments and garden temples as well as a number of courtyard buildings arranged in the shape of a traditional village. The park itself is one of the early English gardens in Germany. It is embedded in the hilly landscape and is home to 50 exotic trees and shrubs, including one of the oldest giant sequoia trees in Germany. The garden art ensemble has largely been preserved in its original form and today serves the population of the Rhine-Main area as a local recreation area .

The site was given the name Prince Camp by the local population. Since the park was not locked and was accessible even when the grand ducal family was staying, locals could watch the princes and their guests here “lying on the meadows”.

location

The Fürstenlager is located south of the Auerberg in a small side valley of the Roßbach that rises from the Upper Rhine Plain to the Odenwald . In Auerbach, following Bachgasse, the valley branches off to the right of the L 3103, which continues through the Mühltal into the Odenwald. The footpath through the prince camp leads to the Felsberg with the Felsenmeer . The nearby Auerbach Castle , the Schönberg Castle and the Starkenburg can be seen from the surrounding mountain ridges .

Parking is available in Bachgasse in Auerbach and a little further away at the Goethe Fountain in Hochstädten . It takes about 10 minutes to walk from Auerbach, and from the Goethe fountain you can walk through the forest to the prince's camp in about 40 minutes.

The buildings of the residence

After the fountain was built in 1768, most of the buildings in the royal camp were built between 1783 and 1792 in the classicism style . Both the representative and the functional buildings of the residence are mostly single-storey and do not have a basement.

The most important buildings in the state park are:

the mansion (1790–1792), the only two-story building in the complex that, after a thorough renovation, has housed a restaurant in the style of a country inn since May 2014
the chamber house (1790–1792), located behind the manor house, served as accommodation for the grand ducal valets ;
the Prinzenbau and the Damenbau (both 1790–1792) face each other on the main axis of the complex. Today the office of the Odenwald Club is located in the Prinzenbau .
the guard house , originally located on the Herrenwiese, was moved in 1804 to its current location at the “little village”
the kitchen, built around 1783 to 1787 as a central farm building with a forge, stable, laundry room, coal cellar, syringe house, bowling alley, cellar, oven and chicken yard
the pastry shop (1790–1792)
the house of the fountain manager (1790–1792)
the white goods house (1790–1792), originally a bath house and white goods room , today the museum shop is located there.

the Kavalierbau, built around 1783–1787 as accommodation for courtiers, is now the seat of the park administration

the foreign building or Pisé building (1810–1811) originally served to accommodate guests. Today there are exhibition rooms, public toilets and a registry office

the stable construction (1783–1787, extended around 1800)

There are other buildings and facilities scattered around the park, such as:

the Gesundbrunnen (1768)

the Hermitage (around 1787), a small chapel clad with bark wood

the Champignonberg, a lookout point with sandstone tables from 1787

the grotto (1790–1791)

the Luisendenkmal (1786)

the Ernst Ludwig Temple (early 20th century)

the friendship altar (originally 1824, reconstructed 1999)

the ice cellar , a vault built before 1792 for storing food

What have not been preserved are:

a tea house
a temple
a small Russian chapel

Outside the park in the Hochstädter Tal is the Goethe fountain .

Image views

The grotto in the park of the royal camp
The ice cellar in the royal camp
The wooden bridge in Asian style at the outlet of the fish pond
The Altarberg
Temple and mansion

The park

Fürstenlager village street

In addition to the already mentioned sequoia are of the exotic vegetation still bald cypresses , cedars , dark flowering magnolias , bush chestnuts and ginkgo worth mentioning. The park begins at the end of a typical village street that narrows uphill on the eastern edge of the Rhine plain (Bachgasse from Auerbach to Hochstädten). The west-east direction ends in a road bend to a narrow north-south side valley, the main path of which is lined by an avenue. A wooden arch bridge in Asian style, which leads over the outlet of a fish pond to the right slope, marks the beginning of what is now almost a unique facility. The character of the complex forms an intermediate solution between the regional village culture of that time and the residential complexes of that time. After the Kavaliersbau and the Remise, the tree hall made of plane trees follows in an extension to the double avenue , which in the summer months enabled the entire Hessian-Darmstadt court to stay in its shade. The most important farm buildings are connected here.

In an extension of the valley to a basin, the mansion stands next to the spring intake in front of a small pond and a large meadow running uphill, which is lined with exotic species. The striking giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum, a species of cypress) reached a height of 44.35 meters in 2015 and has a chest height of 5.94 meters. In 1852, shortly after the tree was imported into Europe, it was a gift from the English royal family to the park of the Hessian landgrave. Here it was planted halfway up the slope. This sequoia is probably the oldest in Germany and possibly on the continent. The paths allow various walks and lines of sight. At the upper edge are lookout points north and south along the mountain road and up to Kalmit (Palatinate) in the west. Nearby are the castle ruins of Schloss Auerbach and Schönberg Castle, owned by the Counts of Erbach. The route to the Felsenmeer in the Odenwald, 5 km away, is also characteristic of the facility. The slope behind the manor house was planted as a vineyard . A local individual vineyard still bears witness to the historic royal camp today. Almost all viewpoints received a small overbuilding or at least benches.

history

In 1730, the official physicist Johann David pointed out a small iron spring in the Roßbach valley. In 1739 excavations took place there for the first time, during which three springs lying next to one another were found and prepared for bathing. In 1740 the spring became muddy. In 1766 it was opened up again. In 1767, the rotunda-shaped fountain fitting of the health fountain, which is still preserved today, was built. In 1768 two residential pavilions were built and the first avenues laid out. Another health fountain (today the Goethe fountain) was built outside the park in the Hochstädter Valley . In 1783 the sick Hereditary Prince Ludwig and his wife Luise visited the royal camp for the first time. After the prince had recovered, the couple regularly spent the summer months in the prince's camp from then on. During the construction work between 1790 and 1795, all buildings were erected, except for the external building.

The Auerbach mountain church above the prince camp was used as a court church. The Romanovs and other Russian princes spent long periods of time in the region and in the royal camp due to close family ties with the court of the Tsars.

After the death of the ducal couple in 1829/30, the great days of the royal camp were over. The mineral content of the spring sank and there was only a limited spa operation. In 1918 the Princely Camp became the property of the People's State of Hesse. It became a temporary hospital . After the Second World War , refugees were housed here. In 1953 the administration of the State Palaces and Gardens of Hesse took over the administration of the properties.

In terms of culture and art history, the royal camp in its closed, preserved whole is of great value today. The plans and planting lists of the original furnishings and the later changes have largely been preserved and allow the renovation that has been carried out in line with the original for a number of years. The administration of the state palaces and gardens renovated the manor house and the surroundings of the representative building for 1.3 million euros. In addition, the entire park will be redesigned according to the model of an English landscape garden and the historical lines of sight will be exposed again.

For several years now, the park has also hosted the Auerbach Festival and the Summer Games in the Prince's Camp , and art exhibitions continue to take place, such as Eugen Bracht - landscape painter in the Wilhelmine Empire , from March 13th to April 10th, 2016.

Early views of the royal camp

The Princely Camp in 1905
The royal camp on a postcard from 1906

literature

in alphabetical order by authors and editors

Thomas Biller: Castles and palaces in the Odenwald. A guide to history and architecture. Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2005. ISBN 3-7954-1711-2 , pp. 73-75.
Dieter Griesbach-Maisant: Cultural monuments in Hessen . Theiss, 2004. ISBN 3-8062-1905-2
Claudia Gröschel: State Park Fürstenlager. Edition of the Administration of the State Palaces and Gardens of Hesse. 1996. 52 pages. ISBN 3-927879-82-7
Claudia Gröschel: The prince camp in Auerbach an der Bergstrasse. From the spa gardens to the dairy . In: Die Gartenkunst 10 (1/1998), pp. 75–86.
Rolf Müller (Ed.): Palaces, castles, old walls. Published by the Hessendienst der Staatskanzlei, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-89214-017-0 , p. 46f.

Individual evidence

↑ Imprint of the Odenwaldklubs eV
↑ Compare the history of the Russian chapel in Darmstadt on Mathildenhöhe . The local, modest wooden building was lost to ant damage.
↑ A document from 1768 in the Hessian State Archives in Darmstadt shows: Accurate floor plan of two health fountains, one in the Hochstätter Valley, the other in Roßbach, both in the Auerbach district and the surrounding area.
↑ Compare e.g. B. the Chinese bridge in the Palatinate castle Schwetzingen around 1780
↑ The story by Ernst Pasqué gives an impression of the life of the landgrave's family in the royal camp : There is a tree in the Odenwald , Verlag Wilhelm Heß, Bensheim adB without a year.
^ Annette Kunz: The mansion will reopen on May 1st . In: Bergsträßer Anzeiger of April 11, 2014, p. 11
^ Bensheim-Auerbach International Summer Festival
^ Green Point Entertainment GmbH
↑ Melibokusrundblick Online: “Landscape Painter in the Wilhelmine Empire” from February 4, 2016, accessed on October 11, 2016