Müschpark
The Müschpark is an 11 hectare park that was created between 1803 and 1814 on behalf of the Secretary General of the French Administration, Wilhelm Körfgen, directly at the northern foot of the Lousberg in Aachen as the Ferme Ornée . The park takes its name from Gut Müsch, located in the same area, which is directly adjacent to today's St. Raphael monastery in the Soers and is located in the Aachen landscape protection area. It was privately owned until 2005 and was then taken over by the city of Aachen, which made it available to the population as a public facility. The entrances are at the former main gate on the corner of Purweider Weg / Strüver Weg and in the area of Buchenallee on the Lousberg.
In 2010 the Müschpark was registered in the list of listed monuments of the city of Aachen as " of particular importance for the history of garden art in the Rhineland " . In addition, it was recorded together with the Lousberg as a biotope worthy of protection in the biotope register of the city of Aachen.
history
In the 17th century there were three neighboring manors in the Soers, the Upper, Middle and Lower Müsch, which were owned by the Regulierherrenkloster zu Aachen. The ponds and some parcel boundaries were originally part of the Obere Müsch estate as an extended kitchen garden . In 1803, the Secretary General of the French administration, Wilhelm Körfgen, took over the Obere Müsch estate as a summer residence and set up a feudal park landscape in the style of an English landscape garden with a kitchen garden, summer house and greenhouses on the area of the adjacent areas . After Körfgen's death in 1829, two years later the family of the cloth manufacturer Johann Heinrich Kesselkaul acquired the Obere Müsch estate and the Müschpark, which they then sold to the wine merchant Eduard Drouven in 1845. A name inscription still reminds of the Kesselkaul couple, who were scratched into the bark of a formerly stately beech tree when it was sold, which still exists today as a tree torso east of the pond at the manor house.
In 1864 the estate of Eduard Drouven passed to the Kommerzienrat Eduard van Gülpen, son of the cloth manufacturer Joseph van Gülpen , who left the park in 1866 with the participation of the Düsseldorf court gardener Joseph Clemens Weyhe , son of the garden architect Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe , in the style of the time remodel. In 1901 the property was transferred to the cloth manufacturer Carl Delius , before it was acquired in 1914 by Hans van Gülpen, a grandson of Eduard van Gülpen, who had the park extended by a western parcel and furnished in a landscape style. Finally, in 1929, the manor house and the park were taken over by the Order of the Daughters of the Holy Cross , who set up a monastery complex on the site and used the park as a monastery park as well as for the purpose of fruit growing, livestock farming and a kitchen garden.
In 1986 Gut Obere Müsch and Müschpark were transferred to the Kolping Society and finally in 2005, after the monastery was dissolved, to the city of Aachen. This made the park accessible to the public and made it available three years later as an integrated part of the “Horse Land Park ” project of the Regionale 2008 . The almost 30 km long “White Path”, which is laid out as a connecting route, leads from the Lousberg through the Müschpark, via Herzogenrath - Kohlscheid to Kerkrade .
layout
While the Müschpark was originally designed under Körfgen as a ferme ornée as a sensibly designed garden near the house for fruit and vegetable cultivation and planted with exotic trees, later under Eduard van Gülpen and according to plans by Joseph Clemens Weyhe the eastern and The more remote parts are included in an overall concept and equipped in a landscape style with open and closed areas and views. The ponds have been revised and the kitchen garden area around a conifer garden expanded as well as one dining and Horse Chestnut Avenue applied and completes the planting of exotic trees. After 1901, a head gardener was hired for the first time, who was given an apartment in the gatehouse. In 1913 a delegation from the German Dendrological Society visited the park and expressed its satisfaction with the progress made so far in the park.
Under the last private owner, Hans van Gülpen, the park was not only expanded, but also equipped in specially designed individual areas with garden pavilions and gazebos , especially in the vicinity of the ponds. The small ponds at the manor house and the edge of the forest were used for trout breeding and the large pond at the main entrance was used for punting. With his meanwhile seven gardeners, Gülpen had a circular path and other avenues laid out, integrated the meadow slope towards Lousberg as a usable area for livestock farming and built several greenhouses, including a palm, peach and grape house.
During the time as a monastery garden, no more redesigns or changes were made and only the existing buildings were maintained. The corresponding areas of the Müschpark were used exclusively for fruit growing, livestock farming and as a kitchen garden for the monastery's own needs, as well as a changing park for the monastery residents. The paths and squares of the park were also used for the annual Corpus Christi procession, communion celebrations and other church events.
With the takeover of the Kolping Society, the manor house was converted into a meeting place for European young people and the park itself served as a teaching object and field of activity for the professional qualification of the long-term unemployed. For this purpose, among other things, a new training nursery and further glass dome greenhouses were built. Only in the course of the takeover of the park by the city of Aachen and its inclusion in the Regionale in 2008 did the Müschpark receive a complete and extensive park renovation based on historical models but with today's technical possibilities. Since summer 2010, the meadows belonging to the park have been leased to a shepherd, who is also responsible for mowing the edges of the border. Ultimately, in 2010 it was possible to place the Müschpark in its entirety as a garden monument / architectural monument as well as seven distinctive trees in the park as a natural monument.
literature
- Rita Hombach: Gut Müsch - The design of fields and pastures for the Ferme Ornée . In: Landscape gardens in the Rhineland . Worms 2010, pp. 114-118.
- Bodo von Koppen: The Park of the Müsch Estate . In: Old Aachen Gardens. A stroll through the home gardens and private parks of an old city . Aachen 1987, pp. 72-79.
- Elke Lorenz: The Müschpark in Aachen. A Ferme Ornée at the foot of the Lousberg . In: Rheinische Heimatpflege . No. 1, 2014, ISSN 0342-1805 , pp. 51-56.
Web links
- Achim Röthig: Park care plant Müschpark / Aachen , documentation, Haan, March 2012, (PDF; 6.0 MB)
- Müschpark garden monument
- Photo series Müschpark
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 50 ° 47 ′ 25 ″ N , 6 ° 4 ′ 51 ″ E