Hercynia to the flaming star
The Hercynia zum flammenden Stern Lodge is a Masonic Lodge located in Goslar . It works under the auspices of the Grand Lodge of the Old Free and Accepted Masons of Germany .
history
The house of the Masonic Lodge "Hercynia zum flammenden Stern" in the Orient Goslar is one of the oldest surviving arable houses in the city. In 1501 the building was erected in the lower town on the corner plot of Kornstrasse / Rundenienstrasse by a client who has not yet been identified.
The hall (hall) still forms the core of the house today, around which the living part was grouped on the left and the storage part on the right. The building was designed as a so-called wing structure with a 9-part gable facing Rundenienstrasse and the gate exit to Kornstrasse and the courtyard side. The left side of the building has 3 storeys with 19 compartments, the dome is formed by 14 compartments. The house was probably used in its original sense until 1624.
Due to the mining rights that had been lost to the Brunswick dukes in 1552, the Brunswick chief miner Otto Brendecken acquired the house for himself in 1624 as the person responsible for the Upper and Lower Harz mining and smelting operations. He then had the building redesigned around 1630 in the style of ducal buildings in Braunschweig and Wolfenbüttel. First of all, the front of the Kornstrasse was subjected to a change that was unique in Goslar. The eye-catcher of the street front is still the sandstone portal with the richly carved door in cartilage style. The round arched gate is framed by a strong square template. Two slender columns with Ionic capitals, freestanding on the wheel deflectors in front of them, support a strongly modeled cornice. The crowning piece has a very moving outline and shows the coats of arms of the client Otto Brendecken and his wife Elisabeth Orms.
Above are two dragon-like mythical creatures , on the right and left are urns in front of the original Rocaille cones. A console protruding in the middle, on which a figure may once have stood, now bears a triangle as a reference to the current owner of the house - the Masonic lodge. The door leaf is also richly structured. In the middle, a so-called slip gate was and is still used today for daily use, while the entire gate was previously only opened in exceptional cases on representative occasions (no longer in use today, but possible). The spaces between the pilasters and the cornice fill the characteristic ornaments of this period: the auricles . The brass door knocker on the slip gate is magnificent. Dälen and living area windows are designed uniformly. Two windows on the front are combined with profiled walls and a protruding sill with a rocaille crown. The protruding beam heads of the storage storey rest on stone consoles - in between the ship's valleys, which particularly characterize the contemporary construction. The sandstone portals in the dale are similar to the main entrance, but are decorated differently depending on their meaning. The rear exit to the courtyard, which is almost more impressive than the main entrance, shows the richest structure. The walled-up, ogival Dael gate with crossed round bars and the year AMCCCCC.I above the top. - 1501 - indicates the origin of the building.
At the instigation of the royal Westphalian tribunal judge Georg-Wilhelm Dieterichs , twenty-one gentlemen from Goslar and the surrounding area met on July 13, 1808 and decided in a constituent assembly "to build a St. John's lodge here in Goslar under the name Hercynia zum Flammenden Stern". Captain Bindewiss's widow owned the house at Kornstrasse 8 and was willing to rent the house for 25 thalers a year with a rental period of 20 years.
The lodge was founded (lighting) on November 16, 1809 at Kornstrasse 8. The sum for the conversion for lodge purposes amounted to 534 thalers. The lodge tried to become friends with the Masonic Order and the Royal York , but the negotiations on the degree system did not lead to a positive result. In 1819 the lodge joined the Grand Lodge at the Three Worlds .
Three days before the 25th Foundation Festival of the Lodge, on November 13, 1834, the house and the large garden belonging to it were owned by the Lodge for 3,200 Reichstaler in gold. On January 4, 1857, the Hercynia moved under the obedience of the Grand Lodge of Hanover .
Major renovations were carried out in 1852, 1892 and for the centenary in 1909. The main focus of this work was the design of the rooms that are still in use and an increase in the former storage facility.
The forced dissolution of the lodges in Germany by the National Socialists during the summer of 1935 also affected the "Hercynia" in Goslar. After the expropriation, the house was assigned to the Reichsnährstand . During the World War the house served as a hospital and then as a retirement home . The house was returned for partial use in 1949, and in 1956 the "Hercynia" was given back full ownership of its property.
Of the more than 500 years that the Ackerbürgerhaus Kornstraße 8 has now existed, the last 208 years (2017) are inextricably linked with the history of the Masonic Lodge "Hercynia zum Flammenden Stern" and are only remembered by the population under the name of "Logenhaus".
literature
- R. Müller: History of the St.Johannisloge Hercynia to the Flaming Star in the Or. Von Goslar. Verlag von Br. Brückner, Goslar 1862, urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10435546-7
