Trespassing Into History

On the northern edge of the village Lehsen near the course of the Motel stream stands a graceful chapel on a tower hill. Built in 1868, the six-sided plastered central building in neo-Gothic style is the mausoleum of the former von Laffert family, who owned the estate. The von Laffert family acquired the estate in 1690 from the long-established von Blücher family.

The local manor house was commissioned by Ernst August von Laffert and rebuilt in 1822 according to plans by architect Joseph Christian Lillie. In 1904, the von Laffert family had to sell the Lehsen estate....(more)

This abandoned sand-lime brick factory was built in the early 1960s as a branch of a large construction company. At that time, the construction boom of the post-war period and the economic miracle was still going on. An existing large military training camp of the German Armed Forces was being expanded in the region at the time. This also required corresponding living space, so the demand for building materials increased accordingly.

In 1964, a modern sand-lime brick factory with three presses was built in the middle of large sand deposits......(more)

We also paid another visit to the third spot on our 2019 Christmas tour during the repeat tour in January 2020. And that was a good thing, because relatively soon afterwards there was a fire in one of the buildings, which meant that the location was literally “burnt”.

Sure - it's not an extremely spectacular place, but a zoological museum with an associated taxidermist is not something you see very often. What's more, I had only taken photos with my cell phone on my first visit, so I wanted to take the opportunity to shoot a few more pictures with the big camera.....(more)