Hunting lodge Rühler house
The Rühler Häuschen hunting lodge was a castle in the vicinity of the town of Ruhla and was located on the Rennsteig south of the hose valley meadow .
history
A hunting area on the Rennsteig, which was intensively used by Duke Wilhelm Heinrich of Saxony-Eisenach and his predecessors, was located near the forest area "Am Creuzberg" near the hose valley meadow .
The already existing coal and forest workers settlement there had to be abandoned in 1670, because the then sovereign Johann Georg I needed the meadow near a spring to build a log cabin and several utility buildings in order to be able to organize his court hunts there. As early as 1700 the buildings were in dire need of repair, in 1708 the main buildings were partially renovated and they served as a hunting lodge for another 30 years.
After Wilhelm Heinrich's death, his successor, Duke Ernst August , planned to build the Rühler Häuschen hunting lodge at the same location. The half-timbered buildings completed in 1745 remained only an episode, because Ernst August wanted to have a pleasure palace in the area and commissioned his court builders to draw up appropriate plans. The castle with a small park was completed in 1748, but was rarely in use due to the duke's death.
The ducal hunting and forestry administration supervised the construction and arranged for all furniture and valuable items of equipment to be removed in order to prevent looting of the remote building. The main building was leased to a forester from Ruhla. Just five years after completion, storms and frost had severely affected the buildings, and a report made in 1753 already shows signs of rotting in the framework. An urgently needed major repair was valued at 1000 thalers. The outbreak of the Seven Years' War prevented further construction work, the place still inhabited by a forester Röhm was poorly repaired after the end of the war. In this matter, the ducal forest administration asked the ruling Duchess Anna Amalia in vain for funds to make the castle complex habitable again. As a result, the castle was left to decay and is said to have become desolate by the beginning of the 19th century.
The spot was discovered by chance during road construction in 1869. The people of Ruhla transferred the name "Ruhlaer Häuschen" to a nearby crossroads on the Rennsteig. The obelisk located there marks the beginning of the Sallmannshausen Rennsteig . A few steps in a northerly direction is a row of trees on the Rennsteig, on which a symbolic key is attached four meters above the ground. This key to the Ruhla house was donated by Ruhla winter sports enthusiasts who wanted to give an old tradition the belief that the key could be used to gain access to the riches of the hidden castle on the Rennsteig.
literature
- Lotar Köllner: The house in Ruhla. (History of a lost Ruhla hunting lodge on the Rennsteig). In: Heimatblätter , EP-Report 2, Marburg 1992, pp. 108-109.
- Ruhler house. In: Between Ruhla, Bad Liebenstein and Schmalkalden (= values of our homeland . Volume 48). 1st edition. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1989, p. 45.
Coordinates: 50 ° 52 ′ 44.8 " N , 10 ° 20 ′ 23.8" E