Landscape park Haus Meer in Meerbusch Park maintenance and repair

Countess Hildegunde von Aare und Meer founded a monastery for Premonstratensian nuns on the edge of the Rheinaue in 1166. The prosperous monastery is secularised around 1800 and sold to the wealthy silk manufacturer family von der Leyen in 1804. The monastery is converted into a palace. Joseph Clemens Weyhe is commissioned to lay out the landscape park in 1864. The monastery's immunity wall continues to enclose the park. A tea house, visible from afar, is erected as a point de vue in the southern corner of the park. From the monastery's ice cellar, which has been converted into a viewing terrace, the eye can now wander over the masterly interflowing park spaces with their impressively composed trees and shrubs in terms of form and colour to the castle. A wide landscape window opens up behind the park pond into the expanse of the Lower Rhine landscape. The castle was destroyed during the Second World War. The park becomes overgrown and suffers enormous damage between 1974 and 1995 due to deforestation measures in the course of a planned 12-storey tower development. With the establishment of the park maintenance work, the basis for the restoration of the completely overgrown landscape garden is laid. The park and buildings are not owned by the city of Meerbusch, but by an investor. Important rescue measures to secure the park, such as the clearing of seedling growth with the restoration of the meadows and the uncovering of the landscape window, could therefore only be initiated through the tireless activities of the "Förderverein Haus Meer e.V.", which has so far raised 200,000 euros for this purpose. The park continues to be severely endangered by a planned hotel development.