Herrenmühle (Hanau)

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View from the Kinzig side with the weir.

The Herrenmühle (also Herrnmühle ) in Hanau was a water mill and the largest mill in the city.

Geographical location

The former mill was located in front of Hanau's old town and the castle to the east, on a Kinzig arch , the peninsula of which is surrounded by the river and cut through by the mill ditch by the shortest route. Immediately below the influence to the Mühlengraben from the Kinzig there is a weir that dams the water for the influence into the Mühlgraben. On the street side, the facility is on Nordstraße .

history

The oldest documented mention of the plant comes from the year 1402. It replaced an older mill, the castle mill . The mill was primarily a grain mill with 10 or 11 grinding cycles. There was also a sawmill , an oil mill, two fulling mills and two other mills.

The mill was owned by the Lords and Counts of Hanau . It served to supply the town and castle with flour and other processed products. The complex was built in the late Middle Ages , even if the oldest parts of the building visible today date from the Renaissance . A building inscription with the year 1520 has been preserved. The mill was initially leased and then operated by the rulers from 1600 to around 1780 on their own account. It was then leased again. The mill seems to have been very profitable, as the citizens of Hanau's old and new town as well as the residents of a number of surrounding villages were obliged to have them milled there.

Turbines were installed to generate electricity from the end of the 19th century . These were in operation until 1942.

Conquest of Hanau by hand, copper engraving by JJ Schnapper from the 17th century.

building

The Herrenmühle was integrated into the Hanau city fortifications , but it also formed a weak point there. The city was occupied by the troops of Count Philipp Moritz von Hanau-Münzenberg , who overpowered General Jakob von Ramsay , who was holding the city, with this coup in 1638 by penetrating the city via the mill weir.

The historical building stock has been preserved: The weir and the bridge over the Mühlgraben from the 16th / 17th centuries. Century, the mill basin, probably from the 17th century, remains of buildings from around 1730 and a turbine house from the second half of the 19th century. In the mill basin, 11 under- powered, offset mill wheels ran with which a corresponding number of grain grinders were operated. In 1874 five mill wheels were replaced by two turbines for power generation. The Wernig machine hall from 1894 also belongs to the ensemble of buildings . It is a cultural monument and is protected by the Hessian Monument Protection Act. It is also part of the Rhine-Main Industrial Culture Route .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reinhard Dietrich : Hanau conquered by hand. In: Hanauer Anzeiger (Volume 263, No. 37) of February 13, 1988, p. 8.

Web links

Coordinates: 50 ° 8 ′ 19.7 ″  N , 8 ° 55 ′ 25.3 ″  E