City Tower (Buchen)

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City tower in Buchen, view from Marktstrasse
Blecker at the city tower

The city ​​tower in Buchen (Odenwald) , a town in the Neckar-Odenwald district in Baden-Württemberg , was built in the Middle Ages . The city ​​gate at the end of Marktstrasse is a protected cultural monument .

History and description

The city of Buchen originally had four gate towers within the medieval city ​​fortifications : the Würzburger Tor in the east, the Seetor in the south, the Mainzer Tor in the west and the Hainstadter Tor in the suburbs. The Mainzer Tor is the only one to have survived and is now called the city tower.

The two lower floors of the tower probably date from the early Gothic period around 1309, the two upper floors from the late Gothic around 1490. A hunting boundary map from 1593 shows the tower with a square pointed roof, the corner turret and a weather vane above a tower knob . After the great fire in 1717, the open part facing the inside was closed and today's octagonal baroque hood was put on.

Actually, in 1853, the district office wanted to tear down the “dark fellow of the Middle Ages”, but the citizenship and the local council voted against it. When there was no longer a tower keeper, "hermits" found accommodation in the little tower room. a. the painter Ludwig Schwerin .

Buchen city tower on Shrovetide

Above the keystone of the outer archway there is a relief of the famous Buchen Carnival symbol, "Blecker". During the carnival season , the three dials of the city tower clock are traditionally hung with posters bearing inscriptions such as “The Buchener Fool does not strike an hour!”.

In the uppermost part of the tower, the “ lantern ”, a carillon consisting of 24 bells was installed in 2015 , 22 of which were new from the “ Royal Eijsbouts ” foundry , Asten (Netherlands). Thanks to computer control, it has a repertoire of 100 melodies, three of which sound at different times every day. At the end of 2015, a gaming table was also installed in the tower's Eiermann room, expanding the carillon into a carillon .

See also

Web links

Commons : Stadtturm  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hunting border map from 1593, Baden-Württemberg State Archives , General State Archives Karlsruhe
  2. ↑ a b Helmut Brosch: Book in Old Views Volume 1, European Library - Zaltbommel / Netherlands, 1979, ISBN 978-90-288-0845-4 , image 5

Coordinates: 49 ° 31 ′ 19 ″  N , 9 ° 19 ′ 25.1 ″  E