Former estate and wine farm Rösch
The large brick-built courtyard complex at Mainzer Straße 1 impresses with its closed and originally preserved appearance.
The estate has been owned by the Roesch family and their descendants for centuries.
Commemorative plaque in the courtyard to the construction of the farm buildings 1878
Image source: Siegfried Schäfer
The layout of the buildings at Mainzer Straße 1 is typical of a Rhine-Hessian farmstead. The residential building with the front facing the street and the rear entrance was extended by a few meters to the right in 1861, according to the preserved date, so the main part of the building was built earlier. Under the residential building there is the former cask wine cellar and the former milk cellar. In the attic of the house, right next to the fireplace, there is a smokehouse, where in the past hams and sausages were smoked in the smoke of smoldering wood chips, making them more durable.
In the left wing of the building, with the preserved date 1878, there used to be the harness and tool shed with a passage to the garden, the grass barn with a turnip cellar underneath, the horse barn and the cow barn. To the right of the dwelling house adjoined the wine press house, the laundry room and the chaise-remise, the storage place for the carriage. At the rear side of the courtyard is probably the largest barn in Harxheim, which was also built in 1878. Below is a large cellar, which was previously used for storage of potatoes. During the Second World War it served as an air-raid shelter. From here, in case of emergency, one could have dug an exit into the large garden behind the barn.
The farm used to be a bustling place of rural life. In addition to cows, pigs, horses, goats and chickens, there was also a dovecote under the barn roof and a beehive in the garden. The agricultural products produced included, of course, bulk and bottled wines.
Wine label from 1939
Image source: Schertz family
Choral festival on the occasion of the 1250th anniversary of the village in the courtyard Mainzer Straße 1
Image source: Irmgard Kaiser-Vreke
Farming operations ceased in the early 1950s. Today the property serves private residential purposes. However, the owners open the farm and the beautifully prepared barn for visitors on special occasions.
These include atmospheric concerts in the run-up to Christmas or celebrations of special local anniversaries.
On these occasions, visitors can admire two special pieces in the barn that are closely connected with Harxheim’s local history: the old organ and the old steeple clock of the Protestant church. The owner of the house, Walter Schertz, has a great weakness for church organs and in his life has already dismantled several of them in churches, then restored and rebuilt them in his estate. When the old organ in the Lutheran church was replaced by a new one in 1985, the old organ found a new home in the Schertz’s barn. It stands there refurbished in the company of a second old organ, and on special occasions both instruments even sound simultaneously. With a lot of skill and commitment, the landlord has also made the silenced church clock of the Protestant church ring again. It stands in the barn on a frame specially constructed for it.
The old evangelical church clock in its new home
Image source: Sigrid Happel
Elm tree at Mainzer Straße 1 in 1979 (one year before felling).
Image source: Klaus-Werner Fritzsch
Next to the left side wing of the farmstead stood until 1980 a large elm tree, usually called Effe in Rheinhessen. Elms used to be widespread in Rheinhessen and, due to their girth and height of more than 30 meters, were prominent focal points in many places – including Harxheim – and in the landscape. Numerous Rhine-Hessian villages used to be surrounded by a rampart of elms planted close together for protection.
The property Mainzer Straße 1 with elm tree in August 1979
Image source: Willi Buchert
However, elm stands have largely fallen victim in the last century to the elm bark beetle, which spreads a fungus that is deadly to elms. The Harxheim elm tree, for example, had to be felled at the end of 1980 as a result of the last major elm dieback in the 1970s.
References:
Conversations with Walter and Christina Schertz
