Ten secrets from Hanover

The lost Von-Alten-Park

The magnificent gardens of the von Alten noble family of Hanover once stretched from what is now Lindener Markt in the north to the Deisterkreisel in the south, making them considerably larger than the Great Garden of Herrenhausen. Over the centuries, they were expanded, remodeled several times, scaled back, and finally divided. A steadfast remnant from the past—often unnoticed and somewhat mysterious—still serves as a reminder of a splendor created by both humans and nature that has been lost forever.

Old wall with meadow — Remains of the wall of the former Von-Alten-Park.

A stone piece of history from 1718

In a meadow along Westschnellweg, near the Deister roundabout, there are two long, clearly older walls made of rough stones that seem to stand there out of nowhere; one of them has a small gate in it. These four-meter-high stone walls, covered with protective wire mesh, are the only remaining sections of the wall that a certain Ernst August (not related to the later King of Hanover, Ernst August I) had built around his garden in 1718. He was the son of Franz-Ernst von Platen, who at the time served as court marshal (i.e., the highest-ranking administrative official) in the Kingdom of Hanover and needed a manorial estate to secure a seat in the state parliament. He found what he was looking for in that garden, which he had leased from the noble von Alten family in 1688. In fact, the garden was of considerable size: the plot of land, which at that time still covered about 56 hectares, had been owned by the von Alten family since the 13th century. After his appointment as Imperial Count and Prime Minister, Franz-Ernst von Platen had his newly leased property expanded and transformed into a French Baroque garden, complete with a pleasure palace, an orangery, ponds and water basins with fountains, hedge-lined bosquets, orchards, and even a menagerie—modeled entirely on the nearby Herrenhausen Gardens, only larger.

And how does the story continue?

Imperial Count Franz-Ernst von Platen died in 1709; his son Ernst August inherited the lease on the garden, which had by then become park-like, and—as mentioned earlier—had it surrounded by a four-meter-high wall nine years later. According to the contract, the garden was to be returned to the von Alten family in 1728. After decades of legal disputes, Carl von Alten repurchased the garden complex in 1816. In 1845, Victor von Alten moved into the former pleasure palace, had the Baroque elements of the garden—which was once again in the family’s possession—transformed into an English landscape garden, and had a grotto built on the palace terrace.

Everything turns out differently in the end

Old wall with gate — The original entrance gate.

In addition to many smaller changes in the following decades (such as the widening of Posthornstraße at the beginning of the 20th century, the clearing of the avenue of lime trees from the castle to today's Deisterplatz in 1925 and the destruction of the baroque castle in an air raid in April 1945), the Westschnellweg in particular had a major impact on the Von-Alten-Garten and caused part of it to disappear irretrievably. The purchase of a section of several hectares made it possible to build the bypass road right through the Von-Alten-Garten and also the construction of the Deister traffic circle. As a result, a large part of the park-like garden was lost forever. The two limestone wall remains with the preserved gate opening were part of the enclosing wall built in 1718 and used to form the southern boundary of the Von-Alten-Garten.

Incidentally, ribbons of honey-yellow beeswax were laid out in front of the small, original entrance gate to the "Wachsbleiche" street and bleached under the sun. And "Weberstraße" was once home to the Leinewebersiedlung (linen weavers' settlement), which Imperial Count Franz-Ernst von Platen had built in the 17th century. But even that is no longer a secret.