Waldglashütte am Lakenborn

The forest glassworks at Lakenborn was an early modern forest glassworks in Solling , the remains of which are located directly on the Lakenteich . The glassworks consisted of a large production hall with several furnaces as well as accommodation for the employees. Both hollow and flat glass were produced , which were sold to the cities of northern Germany and the Netherlands via the nearby Weser . The glass production lasted only about 25 years from about 1655 to 1682 on; after that the facility fell into disrepair. During the excavations , which began in 2003 and was completed in 2007 , the remains of the furnace and building, including the waste dumps with production residues, were archaeologically examined.

Covered partial reconstruction of the main furnace of the Waldglashütte am Lakenborn

location

Lakenteich

The remains of the Waldglashütte are located far away from settlements in the community-free area of the Solling, directly on the Lakenteich. Today's pond was only dammed as a raft pond after the glassworks closed and was used for rafting for a long time . The name Lakenborn as -born is named for a spring that rises there on a slope. As with other glassworks, the name results from the location on a stream, as the factories were located on flowing water. Local historians and archaeologists located the locations of numerous, as yet unexplored, medieval glassworks in the immediate and further vicinity .

General

As early as the 13th century, the Solling with its forest glassworks was an important glass production area . The first documented mention of glass production can be found indirectly in 1397 through glass purchases by Münden Castle . The wooded Weserbergland including the Solling was one of the most important glass production areas in Europe until the 20th century. After declines in the late medieval desert period in the 14th century, a new production phase began in the early modern period in the 16th century. The glassmaking developed into an exporting specialty trade that was of national and international importance. The huts were mostly in remote forest areas that were not very rewarding for other purposes such as hunting. The rulers benefited as landowners of the forest from the hut interest. When after a maximum of 25 years the wood supplies in the vicinity were used up, the forest glassworks moved on.

In glassworks research, the knowledge available on the pre-industrial production facilities of forest glassworks is still insufficient because of their poor preservation. Often only the lowest parts of the stone foundations of the glass furnaces remain. This allows the outlines and the arrangement of the ovens to be reconstructed, but the construction of the upper parts of the oven can only be guessed at.

history

The Waldglashütte am Lakenborn was founded around 1655/56 and fell in the immediate aftermath of the Thirty Years' War, which ended in 1648 . The region was largely devastated and the population impoverished. According to archival sources, the master glassmaker Franz Seidensticker was the founder of the hut. He came from the Kaufunger Forest and was considered one of the most active glassmakers in the Weserbergland during the 17th century. After handing over his glassworks in Vogler and Hils , including the Waldglashütte under the Hilsborn , to his son, he founded another hut in the middle of Solling am Lakenborn. After three years of production, Franz Seidensticker handed over the glassworks to his son-in-law Jürgen Seitz, who continued to run it for around 22 years until his death around 1680. Seidensticker took over a hut near Kohlstädt in Lipper Land . Around 1681, a person named Ruländer (Jonas or his son Lorenz) is mentioned in the written records as the last smelter and co-owner on Lakenborn next to the widow Margarethe Seitz. Glass production continued until around 1681, possibly also until 1682/83. The production, which lasts over 25 years, represents an unusually long life for a forest glassworks. The exact reasons for the closure are not known. Economic difficulties can be suspected.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

At the hut, which was far from a settlement, there was a living area for the glassmakers that has not yet been archaeologically researched. A school was set up there for the children of the employees. In addition, a beer brewery was operated for personal use and dairy farming.

Leibniz visit 1681

According to a traditional correspondence, the Hanoverian polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz traveled to Solling in 1681 with the Hamburg merchant and chemist Martin Elers in order to be able to construct burning mirrors for experiments at the Waldglashütte am Lakenborn . This can be inferred from a letter that Elers sent him from Höxter to Hanover on May 2, 1681 following their joint trip . In it, Elers reports, among other things, that two days earlier he had met the glass master with the forester drunk in the glassworks.

construction

Remnants of technical ceramics from the glassworks with fragments of glass melting vessels for blue and green glass, a brownish furnace stopper and a white model for apothecary bottles

The production area of the Waldglashütte am Lakenborn consisted of a total of five furnaces for glass production, which were located in a closed workshop; with the dimensions of about 17 × 26 meters it was extraordinarily large. Based on the post holes , the hall could be identified as a wooden building with a double row of posts . The inner, more massive posts carried the roof load and a wall construction made of boards was attached to the outer post. The furnace was fired and stoked in the workshop, but outside of the glassmaker's narrow work area.

The main furnace was a port furnace about eight meters long , in which the glass was melted at high temperatures. The foundation made of red sandstone slabs has been preserved in the approximately four meter long glass melting chamber . There are no remains of the furnace vault above, which was presumably made of clay . However, individual parts of the furnace vault were found, such as work openings made of clay and associated closures. The liquid glass material was removed through the openings with a glassmaker's pipe . On the still-preserved harbor banks in the furnace, there were traces of imprints from melting glass vessels , some of which had a bottom diameter of up to 60 centimeters and were therefore very large.

A secondary furnace, two cooling furnaces and a cooling and stretching furnace were arranged in a semicircle around the main furnace. The oval side furnace was made solid and had a diameter of four meters. The cooling and stretching furnace was a furnace with separate firing channels so that the two existing furnace chambers could have different temperatures. Of the two cooling ovens, only one with a diameter of about 3.5 meters has been preserved better, of which remains of the oven dome were found as a layer of clay. Inside the workshop there was another oven that was not used for glass production but was interpreted as a drying or baking oven .

Products

Fragments of glass vessels found during excavations

The glassworks produced greenish forest glass , the color of which is due to iron oxides in the sand used . In some cases, colored glass products were also created. The focus of production was hollow glass in the form of bottles of various sizes. Drinking glasses, such as cylindrical rod glasses and polygonal beer glasses, were produced in large numbers. Romans decorated with berry soups were rarer than wine glasses. Everyday products were buttons made of glass. A special find was a glass drinking horn , which is decorated with a thread and roller stamp decoration. In terms of design, the glass vessels are between the Renaissance and the Baroque . The production range also included storage jars and laboratory jars such as pharmacist bottles. Window glass was created up to an edge length of 30 centimeters using the cylinder blowing process and flat molding in the stretching furnace. Fully preserved glass vessels or disks could not be found. The found material consists almost exclusively of fragments, including around 2,000 parts from pharmacist bottles that burst during the cooling process. The found fragment of a painted imperial eagle mug proves that a glass painter belonged to the hut . The annual glass production is estimated at 10 to 20 tons.

Excavations

Left archaeologist Hans-Georg Stephan , right excavation manager Radoslaw Myszka at the site of the forest glass works

In 1959 a local researcher carried out a superficial prospect to explore the facility. In 2003, Hans-Georg Stephan from the Department of Prehistory and Protohistory at the University of Göttingen initiated a planned excavation of the facility, which continued in 2004, 2006 and 2007 and comprised a total of four campaigns. The production area of the hut and part of the spoil heaps were examined . Although the relics of the glass furnaces in the ground were clearly recognizable through elevations in the ground, an electromagnetic prospecting took place before the start of the excavation for the purpose of precise localization. The refuse dumps, up to three meters high, were clearly visible in the area, but not fully investigated. They consist of layers of rubble and ash, with each layer of rubble meaning a renewal of the main furnace, which took place about once a year during the operation in the 17th century. In the rubble were fragments of harbor banks, glass melting vessels and clay that had been bricked up by the high heat in the furnace.

The excavations were funded as part of the LEADER + EU project Cultural History Experience - Cultural History Solling Project . The findings and findings of the excavation are the subject of the current (2013) dissertation of the excavation director Radoslaw Myszka, which is funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture .

rating

The Waldglashütte am Lakenborn was one of the largest and most important in the Weser Uplands during its operating time. Using comparable glassworks, it is assumed that the hut had up to 25 employees and that around 50 people lived in the associated settlement. It is a typical representative of a forest glassworks of the 17th century in the German-speaking area. She instructed the characteristic furnace arrangement, in which the main furnace faces several semi-circular auxiliary furnaces. The elongated design of the furnaces with a melting chamber located behind the firing channel is also typical. The construction of the glass furnaces and their arrangement in the factory building is probably based on the customs of glassmaking circles.

The archaeological investigations enabled significant conclusions to be drawn about the construction of glass furnaces and factory halls as well as the work processes of earlier forest glassworks. At the hut at Lakenborn, the relics have been preserved extremely well in the ground. This is due to the fact that the site was covered over with production waste during the operating period and the subsequent clay leveling. In this way the floor level rose steadily and the lower furnace areas were largely preserved.

presentation

Partial reconstruction of the main furnace of the glassworks

The Association of Culture-Natural History Dreiländerbund Weserbergland , founded in 2005, restored the foundations of the glass furnaces at the Lakenteich in 2010. Since then, the remains of the facility can be viewed. Information boards have been set up for visitors about the history of the glassworks and its excavation. The main furnace was partially reconstructed and roofed over. The reconstructed furnace openings do not correspond to the current state of research because they are shown too large.

In 2013, Jürgen Koch, the chairman of the Kultur-Naturhistorischer Dreiländerbund Weser Uplands Association, was awarded the Lower Saxony Order of Merit for his commitment to the scientific exploration of the medieval cultural landscape in the Weser Uplands, above all for the construction and tourist development of the Waldglashütte am Lakenborn .

literature

Otto Bloss: The older glassworks in southern Lower Saxony , pp. 141–142, (= publications by the Institute for Historical Research at the University of Göttingen. Vol. 9). Lax, Hildesheim 1977, ISBN 3-7848-3639-9 .

Radoslaw Myszka: The early modern glassworks on Lakenborn in Solling , in: Sollinger Heimatblätter . 4/2004, pp. 20-27.

Radoslaw Myszka, Hans-Georg Stephan: Franz Seidenstickers Waldglashütte “Am Lakenborn” , in: Archeology in Lower Saxony , Volume 8, 2005, pp. 92–95.

Radoslaw Myszka: Preliminary report on the results of the excavation of the early modern glassworks at Lakenborn in Solling , in: Glashüttenlandschaft Europa. Contributions to the 3rd International Glass Symposium in Heigenbrücken / Spessart , Regensburg, 2008, H. Flachenecker, G.Himmelsbach, P. Steppuhn (Eds.) Online (4 MB, pdf)

Hans-Georg Stephan: Glassmaking in Solling - New interdisciplinary archaeological research. The glassworks at Lakenborn , in: Glassworks landscape Europe. Contributions to the 3rd International Glass Symposium in Heigenbrücken / Spessart , Regensburg, 2008, H. Flachenecker, G.Himmelsbach, P. Steppuhn (Eds.)