Ostein's coppice

At the top of the mountain near Rüdesheim on the Rhine, one enters the soil of an approximately 250-year-old "ornamental forest". It is the creation of Count Karl Maximilian von Ostein. Then as now, its fusion of nature, ornamental buildings and magnificent views of the Rhine thrills the public.

History

The Osteinsche Niederwald is a garden monument from the last third of the 18th century. In 1763 Johann Friedrich Karl Maximilian Amor Maria Graf von Ostein (1735-1809) inherited the approximately 304-hectare site and transformed part of it into a park forest over a period of decades. The last male representative of an imperial count's family used a large fortune to develop it for himself and the pleasure of guests.

The creation of a Rhenish nobleman: Count Ostein

Situated on a mountain plateau between Rüdesheim am Rhein and Assmannshausen, he had a summer residence built in the south of the beech and oak forest from 1764 onwards, laid out a representative driveway and a network of paths, and erected over a dozen park buildings richly decorated in detail. The undertaking took place at a time when the so-called English landscape garden was fundamentally changing garden art on the European continent as well, and in Germany it produced mainly sensitive, sentimental gardens.

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