This next Pic of the Week features a bridge that has been talked about for quite some time and will continue to be that way for months to come. This pic takes us to the town of Fargau-Pratjau, located in the Plön District in the northern part of Schleswig-Holstein. It’s home of the Castle Gut Salzau, a castle that was built by Otto von Blome in 1881 and was once home to several festivals, including the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. Since 2010, it has been a focus of repeated struggles to find a permanent resident that will open the castle for guests and also hold public events, especially given its remote location. It’s 60 km east of Kiel and the nearest town Eutin is over 35 km away going south. It has recently been sold to a private group based in Timmendorfer Strand near Lübeck. More information on the castle and its history can be found here.
At this site, one can find a real jewel, as you can see in this picture. It’s a Laves Bridge and it’s the only one of its kind known to exist in Schleswig-Holstein. As mentioned in an earlier article, Georg Luwig Friedrich Laves patented the bridge design in 1829 while he was the city architect in Hannover. The bridge here in Gut Salzau was built in 1838. However, it was largely ignored from view until it was discovered by archaeologists and historians in 2018. After discovering the documents that traced the bridge to Laves, the structure was carefully dismantled and transported to Preetz, where it was restored by Kurt Lange. The project involved sandblasting the arch and making some necessary repairs to the joints before it was repainted a silver and white color. The bridge was then reassembled at its original location in October 2022. The project took two years to complete. Since then, the bridge is open to pedestrians but with one catch: Only two people are allowed on the bridge.
The Salzau Castle is privately owned and closed to the public, yet the trails are open for people to walk the grounds and see this unique structure. I myself was amazed at this unique bridge for many reasons. One of them has to do with Schleswig-Hosteins innovative bridges built over the past 200 years. Given the state’s landscape, which is generally flat with some hills and plains in the east and flood plains in the west, bridge engineers found creative ways to cross rivers, canals and other bodies of water. This included not only using experimental designs taken from the playbook of other engineers but also being inventive with their own designs, not realizing that the designs used for bridge building would be considered historically significant years later. This is regardless of whether the crossings were built for rail, as seen with the Rendsburg High Bridge, which was built in 1913 based on the design that was first built by Lawrence H. Johnson in 1895 in Hastings, Minnesota with the loop approach. Johnson was originally from Flensburg but emigrated to the US as a 13 year old in 1875. It’s also regardless of whether the crossings were built to accommodate regular traffic, as seen with the state’s numerous arch and drawbridges. And it’s regardless of whether these crossings were used in the castle and gardens, like this bridge and many more we will mention. Each bridge builder left his mark with his own invention or using the ones that were tried and deemed successful by others.
And with that we have several unique bridges in Schleswig-Holstein. Some like the aforementioned bridge in Rendsburg that have received international recognition. Others like this bridge at Gut Salzau, which was largely ignored for many years but whose popularity is coming to light after its much-needed restoration.
That Laves chose this location for this bridge remains a mystery; nevertheless he is one of the key accessories to the bridges that belong to the history books.
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Literature:
History of the Laves Bridge: Georg Ludwig Friedrich Laves
Restoration of the Laves Bridge at Gut Salzau (NDR): https://www.ndr.de/kultur/kunst/schleswig-holstein/Historische-Laves-Bruecke-wird-in-Preetz-restauriert,salzau164.html
Leibnitz University of Hannover- Discovering the Laves Bridge at Salzau: https://www.igt.uni-hannover.de/de/baug/forschung/eine-neu-entdeckte-eisenbruecke-von-glf-laves-im-gutspark-salzau-holstein
Castle Gut Salzau: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_Salzau
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I’m collecting some information, including old postcards and photos of bridges for a book on the Bridges of Schleswig-Holstein, which I’m writing at present. If you want to help, click here for more details. My contact details are enclosed as well.
Link: Book Project on Schleswig-Holstein’s Bridges Underway: Now Accepting Information, Photos and Stories
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The Bridgehunter's Chronicles 