Holterhofchen

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Plan sketch by J. Schneider, 1875
At the Holterhöfchen
Wall remains of a building
3D terrain model of the ring wall system

The Holterhöfchen is a ring wall system with residual masonry from a formerly fortified courtyard in the North Rhine-Westphalian town of Hilden ( Mettmann district ).

description

Gartenstrasse, which branches off from Walder Strasse just east of the hospital, leads to the facility. The Holterhöfchen is located in flat terrain at the transition from the Lower Rhine terrace to the lower middle terrace. For a good 130 years, researchers tried to interpret and date the facility , which is atypical for the Rhineland .

After excavations and the dating of the ceramic shards found in 1887 by Constantin Koenen , the construction of the ring wall system is believed to have been in the 9th / 10th. Century assumed. The Holterhöfchen consisted of two trenches and two ramparts and had an inner diameter of 60 × 80 meters. In the past, a third, outer wall was assumed. In fact, this is just the old surface in which the outer moat was sunk. A large part of the wall section is missing in the north-west. Rafael von Uslar quotes that between 1870 and 1878 a piece of wall was removed to extract earth for backfill on a house.

Today's interpretation is based on the assumption that the Holterhöfchen was a fortified courtyard. This was created on the sand of the Lower Rhine terrace. A part of the farmland is likely to have been on the loess clay of the lower central terrace, which was directly to the east of the courtyard.

The Mühlenbach, a branch of the Itter , flowed around the Holterhöfchen until 1819. The extract from the cadastral map from 1830 shows that the Mühlenbach branched out from the Itterbach near Kalstert, flowed through the Buchmühle to the south (today the western end of the street Kalstert on the A3 motorway), then flowed around the Holterhöfchen in the north from the north-east and in the direction of Oberste Mühle (today Itter-Brücke Elberfelder Straße) reunited with the Itterbach. In 1819, the southern part of the Mühlenbach, which enclosed the Holterhöfchen, was drained and the course of the stream along the Walder Strasse straightened.

Gechter summarizes the current state of research: The complex was built in the 10th century after an earlier courtyard complex was destroyed by fire at the end of the 9th century. Only then was the courtyard secured with a double trench and double wall. The 1.2 meter thick stone wall of the outer wall was first pulled up on the ground and then filled in on both sides with the excavation from the trenches. It probably did not protrude far from the ground, as it was not intended to provide any attackers with any cover against the defenders on the inner wall. The one-meter-thick stone wall of the inner wall, on the other hand, was hidden in front of an earth wall poured in at the back. While the outer wall would have withstood the use of battering rams, the inner wall did not. It probably served mainly as a parapet for the defenders.

The reinforced back of the ring wall system pointed to the lower terrace in the direction of today's fire station. Possibly this was the only direction that danger could threaten. On the lower terrace on the edge of the Rhine plain, trade routes ran west of the Holterhöfchen. B. Mauspfad , Schutzstraße, while the area east of the Holterhöfchen was still densely forested in the 10th century and it rose in the direction of the city of Wald (today Solingen).

The gate of the courtyard seems to have been in the south-east towards the Pungshaus . In addition to the gate system, a rectangular building measuring 6.5 × 7 meters was erected on the outer wall at a later date. The remains of the wall are the only ones left in the complex. No traces have so far been found of an interior structure that was probably made of wood. A bailey does not seem to have existed. A path through the area does not seem to have existed. He came later.

The builder and owner of this facility has to be imagined as a small nobility. The construction of the ring wall indicates an immigrant from the north or east into the Rhine Valley, who brought with him the knowledge of the round construction that he was familiar with from there.

Today's public green space was created between 1885 and 1886 and modernized from 1965 to 1966.

literature

  • Jacob Schneider : Die Heidenburg bei Hilden , in: Monthly magazine for Rhenish-Westphalian historical research and antiquity, 1st year, Bonn 1875, p. 376
  • Constantin Koenen : Miscelles . In: Bonner Jahrbücher . Wittich, Darmstadt 1888, volume 85, here p. 149 ( digitized version ).
  • Rafael von Uslar : To the Holterhöfchen near Hilden . In: Hildener Jahrbuch 1956/59 . Volume 7. Stadtarchiv, Hilden 1960, pp. 9–31.
  • Rafael von Uslar: Studies on early historical fortifications between the North Sea and the Alps (= Bonner Jahrbücher - supplements , Volume 11). Böhlau, Cologne / Graz 1964, page 5 ff and table 2.
  • Ulrike Unger, Michael Ebert: Dönekes and local history. History and stories from Hilden , Rheinische Post, Museums & Heimatverein Hilden eV, ISBN 3-9804615-2-1 , 1998, p. 58.

Web links

Commons : Holterhöfchen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Emerich Krämer : From castle to castle on the Lower Rhine , Volume 1, 4th edition, Mercator, Duisburg 1982, ISBN 3-87463-057-9 , p. 98.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Michael Gechter: Die Ringwallanlage in Hilden in: Hildener Jahrbuch 2001 . New series, volume 11. Stadtarchiv, Hilden 2001, pp. 7-18. The key messages are from page 18
  3. ↑ a b c d Rafael v. Uslar: Zum Holterhöfchen near Hilden , in: Hildener Jahrbuch 1956–1959 Vol. 7, pp. 9–31
  4. ↑ Uslar, pp. 16-17
  5. ↑ Rafael v. Uslar: Zum Holterhöfchen bei Hilden, plan of the Holterhöfchen supplemented according to old measurements , in: Hildener Jahrbuch 1956–1959 Vol. 7, illustration and plan 3
  6. ↑ Uslar p. 20 Fig. 5
  7. ^ Gechter, page 18
  8. ^ Anton Schneider, Die Heer- und Handelsstraßen in: Contributions to the history of Hilden and Haan, Hilden 1900 pp. 13-14
  9. ^ Theodor Joseph Lacomblet (ed.): An inscription to Haan near Hilden in: Archives for the history of the Lower Rhine, Vol. II, Düsseldorf 1857, pp. 100-102.
  10. ↑ Rafael v. Uslar: Zum Holterhöfchen near Hilden, plan of the Holterhöfchen based on measurements by Dipl. Ing. H. Werner , in: Hildener Jahrbuch 1956–1959 Vol. 7, illustration and plan 1

Coordinates: 51 ° 10 ′ 1 ″  N , 6 ° 56 ′ 45.1 ″  E