Neu-Jägersdorf

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Picture by Johann Georg Stockmar titled View of Neujägersdorf, the Kröge, near Battenberg (mid-18th century)

Neu-Jägersdorf , also called the Kröge , was a stately hunting lodge and hunting camp of the Landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt , built from 1703 , about 1.5 km north of Battenberg (Eder) in the Waldeck-Frankenberg district in Hesse .

Building history

The extensive forest areas of the Hessian hinterland , which fell to the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt in 1627, were known for their abundance of game . At the turn of the 18th century, during the reign of Landgrave Ernst Ludwig (1667–1739), the heyday of court hunting began in Hessen-Darmstadt, imitating the luxurious lifestyle of the French royal court and high nobility . Ernst Ludwig's great passion for hunting was expressed in the complex of many new hunting castles. In 1703, the Battenberg Forest, whose red deer was considered the best in Upper Hesse at the time , was about 1.5 km north of Battenberg on the north bank of the Eder on behalf of Landgrave Ernst Ludwig with the construction of the Neu-Jägersdorf hunting farm , the so-called "Kröge".

The attachment

The facility, only about 100 m away from the orographic left, at this point northeast bank of the Eder, was architecturally unique, more like a military than a hunting property. The Jagdhof, a square complex of 460 feet (132.5 m) side length, which was surrounded on all sides by a rampart with parapets and a 20 foot (5.75 m) wide moat , had three entrances, each with a bridge over the moat . The development was completely symmetrical (see the layout of the complex), and all the buildings, 44 in total, were one-story and made of brick , with slate-covered mansard roofs and dormers.

On each of the four long sides of the area there were two, eleven window axes long buildings: on the northeast side the residential building for the "rule" and next to it the one for the "foreign rule", on the northwest and southeast side a residential and dining building for servants and a horse stable, and on the south-west side facing the Eder two more stables. At each of the four corners there was a square house: the kitchen and the “lodging for counts” on the northeast side, the house for the head forester and the bakery on the southwest side. Around the middle of the courtyard were two rows of smaller buildings on all four sides, a total of 32 (12 in the inner ring, 20 in the outer), all of the same size and with a square floor plan: guest and utility houses, chancellery and silver room, wash houses, game scales, and Accommodation for the hunting staff, officers, guards, the court preacher and the personal physician.

A bridge was built over the Eder so that one could hunt on both sides of the river.

Detailed investment plan

In detail, the development consisted of the following buildings (whether all the planned buildings were actually built is not certain, and it is more likely that the complex was never fully completed):

On the northeast side, which was the only one without an entrance and a bridge over the moat, there was (1) the stately residential building and to the left (west) of it (2) the identical residential building for foreign rulers. Both had a footprint of 90 × 40 feet (26 × 11.5 m) with an eleven-axis long side (ten windows and a central portal) and five-axis gable ends. The top floor was divided on both sides by nine dormers . On the ground floor, were around the spacious vestibule through the portal, four windows and a fireplace eleven rooms, four of them with fireplaces grouped. The attic, accessible via two staircases on both sides of the entrance hall, contained rooms for service personnel and supplies. At the northeast corner of the complex, next to the stately home, was the kitchen (3). Like all four corner buildings, it had a square footprint of 40 feet (11.5 m) on each side and was five-axis on all four sides. The hipped mansard roof was pierced by three dormers on each side. On the north-west corner, next to the residential building for strangers, stood (4) the lodging house for counts, outwardly identical to the kitchen house, with five rooms (two of them with a fireplace) on the ground floor.

Adjacent to the kitchen building along the east side was (5) one of the two 90 × 40 foot (26 × 11.5 m) living and dining houses for the servants, structurally identical to the stately homes. This was followed by the first of four large stable buildings to the south (6). It was 86 × 40 feet (24.8 × 11.5 m) and contained stables for 42 horses, as well as accommodation for the grooms and rooms for bridles, feed, etc. in the attic. An 18-foot (5.2 m) wide entrance with a bridge over the moat led into the Jagdhof between the servants' house and the stables. This side of the Jagdhof was closed off in the southeast corner by the bakery , which in turn was structurally identical to the kitchen house.

Adjacent to the bakery to the west, on the southwest side of the facility (8 and 9), there were two identical stables, each 90 × 40 feet (26 × 11.5 m) in size, each with 44 horse stalls. Outwardly, they were reflections of the two stately houses on the opposite side. Between the two was a narrow entrance, only 6 feet (1.73 m) wide, with a bridge leading out of the courtyard. The south-west corner was taken up by the (10) house of the head forester, which outwardly resembled the count's house.

Along the north-west side there was again (11) a horse stable with 42 boxes and (12) a second living and dining house for servants, both the exact counterparts to the buildings on the opposite side of the courtyard. Here, too, an 18-foot (5.2 m) wide driveway led into the Jagdhof between the servants' house and the stables. The end of this courtyard side was (4) the lodging house for counts.

The 32 smaller buildings inside the courtyard were all 18 feet (5.2 m) square and were each 18 feet from their neighboring buildings. They stood in two rows around an empty space 90 feet on a side in the center. These houses were:

(1) the washing house grand wash, (2) the laundry for common wash, (3 and 4) two Logier cottage for a corporal and six guard tab, (5 and 6) has two boarding houses for hunters lad (7, 8, and 9) three little houses for indefinite purposes, (10) the slaughterhouse , (11 and 12) two lodgings for foreign lackeys , (13 and 14) two guard houses for the Corps de Garde , (15 and 16) two lodgings for stately lackeys, ( 17) a lodging house for kitchen staff, (18) the lodging house for the trumpeters, (19 and 20) two lodging houses for the senior officers, (21) the lodging house for the chef and the clerk, (22) the silver chamber for the cutlery , ( 23) a lodging house for two rifle clamps , (24) the lodging house for the court preacher , (25) the chancellery , (26) a second lodging house for stately lackeys, (27) the venison scale, (28 to 31) four lodging houses for cavaliers , and (32) the Logierhäuschen for the personal physician . Each lodging house had a room, a cabinet and an toilet .

history

Landgrave Ernst Ludwig (regent from 1668 to 1739) and his son Ludwig VIII stayed several times in Neu-Jägersdorf, but with the construction of the Kleudelburg hunting lodge, which began in 1721/22 only about 3 km further north-west, the gradual neglect of Neu-Jägersdorf began. Jägersdorf. One of the stable buildings was demolished in July 1722 and rebuilt on the Kleudelburg. Other buildings were also subsequently demolished or were never completed. When Landgrave Ludwig IX took office. in 1769 only 28 of the small buildings, parts of the stables and the head forester's house were preserved. In 1770 he ordered its sale to be demolished. The councilor Seipp from Battenberg bought the remaining facility for 600 guilders, sold some of the houses as residential buildings, and installed a factory on the site, for which he also bought several buildings from the Kleudelburg, which was also auctioned for demolition, and had them moved to the Kröge . However, he miscalculated and in 1784 had to return the part that he had not sold to the landgrave government to settle his remaining purchase debts. The twelve remaining houses and parts of the stable buildings were then sold on in 1788/89.

In 1830 there was only a small settlement with 13 houses and 62 inhabitants on the site of the former hunting lodge. In 1850 there were only four houses left, one of them owned by the Gypsy family Ludwig, whose ancestor warned Landgrave Ludwig VIII of an assassination attempt and is said to have been given the right to live in the Kröge.

Current condition

Today the Kröge is a small hamlet belonging to Battenberg, immediately east of the L 3382 , which follows the Edertal from Battenfeld to Dodenau . The square plan and contours of the wall can still be seen today.

Coordinates: 51 ° 1 ′ 42 "  N , 8 ° 38 ′ 11"  E

literature

  • CF Günther: Pictures from Hessian prehistory. G. Jonghaus, Darmstadt, 1853, pp. 209–212
  • Gisela Siebert: Hunting lodges of the Landgraves of Hessen-Darmstadt in pictures from the 18th and 19th centuries. Darmstadt 2000, p. 49
  • Jens Friedhoff : Castles, palaces and aristocratic residences in the Hessian hinterland . Published by the Hinterland History Association, 2018, p. 186.
  • Klaus Böhme: Hunting and hunting lodges of the Landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt in the former Battenberg office. Battenberger Geschichtsblätter No. 39, Battenberg History Association, Battenberg, 2013

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Some of the larger buildings along the south and west sides have either already been demolished or have never been erected.
  2. ^ Website of the community of Dautphetal - castles and hunting castles Kleudelburg ( Memento from May 12, 2005 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved February 8, 2016
  3. ↑ The expenses for this and for the hunt itself were so burdensome that the landgrave was forced by his officials and theologians to give up the par force hunt in 1718.
  4. ↑ 1 Darmstadt foot = 28.814 cm
  5. ↑ a b c View and floor plan of Neujägersdorf, the Kröge, near Battenberg, 18th century. Historical town views, plans and floor plans. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).