Rauischholzhausen Castle Park
The Rauischholzhausen Castle Park is a 32 hectare English landscape park in the village of Rauischholzhausen ( Ebsdorfergrund municipality , Marburg-Biedenkopf district , Hesse ) that was laid out in the 19th century . The freely accessible park, which extends around Rauischholzhausen Castle , is also the New Botanical Garden of the Justus Liebig University in Giessen .
In 2009 the park was included in the European Themed Route of the European Garden Heritage Network .
history
In 1871 Ferdinand Eduard von Stumm (still without a title of nobility until 1888), descendant of the large industrial family Stumm and at that time counselor in St. Petersburg , acquired the Rauschen properties. As a partner of the Stumm brothers, he had become very prosperous and, in competition with his brothers, who also had magnificent castles built ( Halberg Castle and Ramholz Castle ), had the park and the castle built.
The palace, which architect Carl Schäfer was commissioned to plan , was completed in 1876, while the park was designed by Heinrich Siesmayer from 1873 to 1876 at the same time . An older tree population, especially hat oak , was integrated here. 40 to 50 workers were permanently employed in the park. Above all, the planting of fully grown trees, as requested by the client, was laborious in order to give the park a finished look right from the start.
In the days of the (von) Stumms, the entire park was enclosed by walls, fences, hedges and locked gates. Villagers were only allowed to enter the park in the absence of the lord of the castle, with explicit permission, and only to watch the dahlias .
In 1938 and 1941, Stumm's son Ferdinand, who had also been in the diplomatic service until 1918 and had been lord of the castle since his father's death in 1925, sold the estate , castle and park. In a letter he wrote: "It is impossible to restore the park, 60 to 80-year-old trees cannot be replaced [...] the park, which was fortunately sold in the winter of 41/42, is now just a pretty ruin".
Since the early 1970s, the now grown to giant trees fell (field) elm avenue from the northern park entrance on the east side of the castle the Dutch elm disease victim and finally had to go through a Krimlinden avenue replaced.
Parkland
The park is about one kilometer long in north-south direction; its width is about 500 meters in the northern half, it narrows to the southeast. It is traversed in a south-north direction by the Rülfbach, which drains to the Ohm, and a Mühlgraben parallel to the east.
The castle pond in the north lies at an altitude of about 235 m above sea level. NHN ; to the edges to the southwest, south and southeast, the altitude increases significantly to around 260 m to the plateau of the Vorderen Vogelsberg ( Sennberg 2.7 km south of the castle: 383 m ).
Immediately on the south side of the castle there are considerable shapes made of boxwood and yew trees ; an arcade made of shape-cut hornbeam leads from the castle to the higher-lying stable building, where the parking lot is also located . All other parts of the park are planted much closer to nature.
structure
The north-eastern part of the park, which leads into the village of Rauischholzhausen , consists of a meadow rising from the castle pond to the castle, interrupted only by a few solitary trees, which extends west to the Rülfbach and is bordered by an avenue of Krimlinden linden trees to the east.
The north part of the park segment to the west of the Rülfbach is diversely planted and characterized by the alternation of species-rich groups of trees and meadows. In its south-west there is a tree of life group, which represents a position between an avenue and a - tree-high - "hedge". Opposite this, the south of the western part is occupied by the former sports field, the former purpose of which is still clearly visible today. On its south side, like oversized goal posts, there are two old English oaks that had already existed as hat oaks before the park was built. Otherwise the meadow is only interrupted by a Himalayan birch on the northeastern edge.
From the stables of an avenue leads Buckeyes to a two burly yew -lined Monument Bismarck , which simultaneously represents a section of the east limit. Otherwise, the segment south of the castle and east of the Rülfbach, which takes up about half of the park area, is planted similar to the northwest segment. The Mühlgraben and numerous paths clearly segment the alternation of meadows and groups of trees; in the southwest, the paths also lead in sections through natural forest.
Old trees
Above all, exotic giant conifers are striking in the palace gardens, but there are also striking specimens of native species.
Deciduous trees
Probably the oldest trees in the park are the pedunculate oaks on the south side of the former sports field with trunk circumferences of 4.40 and 5.30 meters. Older oaks can also be found in the southeast segment.
A curious symbiosis of oak and red beech (in favor of the latter) southwest of the castle and one of oak and hornbeam on the meadow between the castle and the castle pond.
A splendid copper beech can be found in the immediate vicinity of the castle pond . In the adjacent northwest segment to the west there is a red oak with a trunk circumference of 4.40 m and a norway maple with a 3.70 m length.
Conifers
Scattered around the park are various giant conifers such as Douglas fir , red spruce , hemlock and various types of pine .
Particularly impressive are a more than 40 m high Douglas fir and a hardly smaller spruce on the slope of the Rülfbach, west-southwest of the castle, each with a trunk circumference of 4.5 meters. At 3.8 meters, the thickest of the park's various old hemlocks can be found immediately south of the castle.
In the center of the southeast segment, a 3.70 meter trunk circumference measuring Greek fir on the left bank of the Mühlgraben south of the castle is conspicuous, with a tree of life 3.5 meters opposite to the right of the trench . To the south-east of it stand two distinctive pines on the edge of the park , the northern one of which belongs to the only three-needle pine species Pinus ponderosa .
Among the many false cypresses and arborvitae, the most conspicuous tree for visitors is likely to be a giant arborvitae with a trunk circumference of 3.50 meters, which, seen from the north, appears to grow on the castle wall in the western vicinity of the castle.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c d Hermann Deuker, Ingo Dienstbach, Klaus Laaser: The castle park of Rauischholzhausen . 2nd Edition. Verlag der Ferber'schen Universitätsbuchhandlung, Giessen 1986, ISBN 3-922730-42-6 (first edition: 1983).
- ^ Barbara Vogt: Siesmayer's gardens. 2009, ISBN 978-3-7973-1151-1 , p. 73.
- ↑ Map services of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation ( information )
- ↑ a b c d e The circumference of the trunk at a height of about one meter above the ground, measured around 1997.
Web link
Coordinates: 50 ° 45 ′ 22 " N , 8 ° 52 ′ 53" E