Seelhorst (city forest)
The city forest Seelhorst is a forest area in the district of the same name of Hanover not far from the Hanover city forest Eilenriede . The forest with an area of about 1 km² was first mentioned in documents in 1483.
Name and property
Seelhorst is derived from the term Sehl for a swampy, boggy place or a water hole. Horst here stands for a small piece of forest. Accordingly, the Seelhorst is a forest in wet terrain. In fact, spring water emerges from the earth in two places where water holes have formed. The northern area was formerly called "Aspel", which is derived from Aspe , a species of poplar. This tree species used to be the main type of wood in the forest.
Most of the forest is owned by the city and is managed by the Green Spaces Department, including the northern part, which is owned by a church institution. The southern area is to a small extent privately owned.
location
The Messeschnellweg cuts through the Seelhorst in a north-south direction and separates the forest into a smaller western and a larger eastern part. The Seelhorster Kreuz motorway junction to the north is named after the forest , where the Messeschnellweg crosses the Südschnellweg . Together with allotments to the west and the Seelhorst town cemetery , the forest offers a recreational area between the districts of Döhren , Mittelfeld , Bemerode and Kirchrode .
description
The Seelhorst, as the forest is usually called, has a network of 9 km of trails. Inside there is a toboggan hill and a playground. The area is still very original and rich in tree species, and in parts also swampy. Because of the floods in spring, a network of drainage ditches was created in earlier centuries. Today the Seelhorst is drier than it was at the beginning of the 20th century; since then the groundwater has sunk. Today attempts are being made to improve the water situation by keeping the water in the forest using rainwater retention ponds. The Seelhorster Bach flows through the forest in a north-south direction. In addition, a 900 m long artificial stream with many windings was dug through the middle of the forest.
The forest is a common oak-hornbeam forest with the main types of wood: common oak , hornbeam , beech and ash . The shrub layer is only sparsely developed, but the range of species is diverse. The forest floor is formed by a thick layer of herbs. The game population is low and consists of hare, rabbit, fox and badger. The forest offers nesting opportunities for many bird species, such as ground- and bush-brooding nightingales . The proximity of nature of the area is shown by the nine proven bat species . The animals move into woodpecker holes or cracks in trees.
history
The Seelhorst originally belonged to the districts of the villages Döhren, Bemerode and Kirchrode. In 1907 the area was incorporated into Hanover. In earlier centuries the forest was used economically for hunting , pig fattening and wood production. The cattle were herded into the forest to graze until the 19th century. In 1852 Werner von Grävemeyer built a hunting lodge in the forest. As early as 1854 it was converted into an inn, which is still in use today under the name “Waldwirtschaft Seelhorst”. The local poet Hermann Löns , who lives in Hanover , often returned to the restaurant on his hikes through the Seelhorst. The tree population was decimated after the Second World War , as large amounts of wood were felled for reparation payments. The forest was remote from Hanover for centuries. Around 1980 it was developed through residential areas and large company buildings. In 2000 the youth center Bemerode was built on the eastern edge of the forest.
Ammunition plant
In 1938, the Wehrmacht set up an ammunition plant in the eastern part of the open area , the Hanover Army auxiliary ammunition plant . The building complex included barracks, bunkers and garages. Fast-growing poplars were planted for camouflage purposes . This created the forest area of the "Kleine Seelhorst". After the Second World War, the ammunition plant was used by the British Army and later by the German Armed Forces and then as an industrial park. Because of the operation of the ammunition plant, the area was considered to be an old arms store. From around 1990 all buildings were demolished and the area renatured - an example of the successful conversion into a recreational forest . Remains of the road network and buildings from the former ammunition plant can still be found in the forest, including several bunkers.
literature
- The Seelhorst . Text: Horst Lill, Gerhard Dirscherl, January 2002, Ed .: Green Space Office of the City of Hanover
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ City stops tree felling , Hannoversche Allgemeine , January 25, 2014 accessed online on January 25, 2014
Coordinates: 52 ° 20 ′ 37 ″ N , 9 ° 48 ′ 24 ″ E