Hämeler forest
The Hämeler Wald is an approximately 8.5 km² (850 ha) large contiguous, almost square deciduous forest area . It is located west of the Hämelerwald district of the city of Lehrte in the Hanover region in Lower Saxony . The forest area is one of the few remains of the ancient northern forest between Hanover and Braunschweig , which was spared from being converted into arable land in the early medieval clearing period . The Hämeler Forest is located in the large landscape of the Burgdorf-Peiner Geest . Today the closed forest area is only crossed by forest paths and by the BAB 2 and the Hanover – Braunschweig railway line .
Surname
The Hämeler Wald was formerly called the Hameler Wald , which is a modification of the name of Hohenhameln , 8 km to the south . The forest reached up to this place in the Middle Ages . The municipality of Hämelerwald , founded in 1864 and immediately to the east, was named after the forest . It was first built as a train station on the railway line cut through the forest in 1843.
Soil condition
The forest area stands on a waterproof layer of clay . It is covered by a layer of marl which, due to its lime content, ensures that beech trees grow well. Since the rainwater cannot seep away due to the clay subsoil, it accumulates and the area is permanently damp. This subsoil, which tends to become waterlogged , preserved the tree population for centuries, as clearing was of no interest for arable land. At the end of the 19th century, the royal forester (1871–1886) and surveyor Edmund Laske took care of a survey and subsequent general division of the forest. This ended the use of the forest in the Middle Ages . At the same time, the forester had the Hämeler Forest, which had been swampy until then, drained . For this purpose, the forest area was traversed with a system of ditches, which leads the water to the Burgdorfer Aue river . The receiving water achieved by these measures had a height difference of 3 m. This ensured that the wet breaks in the forest were largely drained .
Wildlife and hunting
The extensive forest area offers shelter for many animal species, including a diverse bird world with numerous species of woodpeckers , owls and nuthatches . At Wild are deer , wild boars , foxes , badgers , martens and raccoon represented.
According to old court records, poaching often occurred in the Hämeler Forest in earlier centuries . The hunt was at the beginning of the 19th century by the Kingdom of Hanover regulated. Because of the war-related famine during and after the Second World War, the game population fell sharply due to poaching. Until 1952 the British occupying forces also hunted the forest, which after 1945 had confiscated hunting in the state forests everywhere.
Plant life and logging
The entire forest is a high forest , there is hardly any dense undergrowth. The predominant tree species is the red oak ; However, the lime-loving beeches that thrive on the marl soil are also common. Other tree species are linden and maple . Conifers are rare because of the moist soil. There are also many ferns in the forest . Since 1970, the approximately 860 ha large Hämeler Forest and parts of its surrounding area on a total of 1266 ha have been declared a landscape protection area. Together with the adjacent Sohrwiesen it was declared an FFH area in 2004 and a nature reserve in 2019 .
FFH area Sohrwiesen
Immediately to the south-west of the Hämeler Forest is the approximately 100 hectare wet meadow complex “Sohrwiesen” in a secluded location . It is a groundwater and natural cultural landscape. It consists of extensively used pastures with reed areas . The Hannoversche Vogelverein (HVV) bought larger areas in the 1980s to protect them from agricultural use. The wetland was designated as a landscape protection area in 1992.
forestry
Forestry in the Hämeler Wald is operated sustainably. The annual felling does not exceed the wood growth. Around 4,000 cubic meters of wood are felled each year . Some of the wood is exported to France, the Czech Republic and Sweden, where it is processed into parquet , furniture or cognac and wine barrels in the Cognac region .
The northern half of the forest area is the state forest of Lower Saxony and is administered by the Wolfenbüttel Forestry Office. In this area north of BAB 2 there are still wooded areas with oaks up to 250 years old. In some places there is still a jungle-like structure. The larger, southern part of the forest belongs (for historical reasons) to seven farmers' cooperatives in the nearby towns of Hohenhameln , Equord , Mehrum , Rötzum , Stedum / Bekum, Ohlum and Soßmar .
The forest used to offer work opportunities for lumberjacks , who initially came from Sievershausen and later from Hämelerwald, which was only created in 1843. A 2.50 m high stone cross was erected in 1904 for a forest worker who was slain while falling trees in 1895. The forest suffered great losses when the railway line Minden - Magdeburg was built in 1842, which crosses it in a west-east direction. The trees were decimated by the railway line and built in the form of railway sleepers . Almost a century later there was again massive forest shrinking due to the construction of the BAB 2 in the 1930s, which cuts through the forest in an east-west direction on its own route. After the Second World War , the British occupying forces took on major logging for their own purposes.
history
Originally, today's Hämeler Forest was part of the ancient northern forest between Braunschweig and Hanover , from which the Eilenriede has probably also been preserved. In earlier centuries the forest was subject to medieval forest use by the population of the surrounding villages. That was mainly the gathering of firewood, mushrooms and wild berries. Some surrounding villages had these rights since at least the 16th century.
In times of war, the dense forest served the residents of the surrounding settlements as a hiding place. This was the case in 1700, when August the Strong with 7000 men of the Saxon troops went through the country and destroyed 14 villages in the Peiner area.
In 1784 the forest was measured for the first time by a surveyor on the orders of the nobles (see map above). The forest area of 888 hectares was roughly the same as it is today. At that time, three timber removal routes crossed the forest: the Breite Weg, the Hau-Weg and the Kampsweg. About ten watercourses flowed through the forest, each of which had the ending -riede in its name. There were also a number of broken forest areas .
Ownership
During the Hildesheim collegiate feud in the 16th century, the Hildesheim monastery came into possession of the forest; after that it was in Guelph ownership. Other owners were at times Prussia (from 1802) and the Kingdom of Hanover (1815 to 1866). In the middle of the 19th century, King George V of Hanover gave 80% of the forest to the seven surrounding villages and only 20% remained in royal possession. In order to prevent exploitation by the farmers, a royal forest official administered the entire forest according to a forest law.
literature
- Otto Bode: Hämelerwald 1864–1974, Our place from then to the present , Hämelerwald 1989
Coordinates: 52 ° 21 ′ 0 ″ N , 10 ° 5 ′ 0 ″ E