Dear Sir or Madam Dear members!
We want a short Review of our association's activities in the year 2023.
Up-to-date information, especially on our events, was constantly available on our homepage on the Internet: www.denkmalverein-bonn.de. It's worth looking in there regularly! - We have also been sending you information by e-mail for a long time. If you have not yet received this, it is because we have not received any information from you. E-mail address (exclusively for such informational purposes!). Therefore our heartfelt request:
Send us your e-mail address! Please send to: denkmalverein-bonn@t-online.de
On the Annual General Meeting In April, the Chairman and all active members submitted work reports on their departments - which you are welcome to call up at our office. - With the Board elections the previous line-up was essentially confirmed (list at the end of the letter!).
Bernd Müller (management) and Carola Nathan (library) were newly elected. Jochen von Thülen did not stand for re-election, but was thanked all the more for his imaginative commitment. - Dr Friedrich Gebhardt, our deserving picture archivist, was appointed an honorary member.
The endeavour for our Mayor Stroof House is a pleasure for everyone. The house is open to visitors on Fridays and Sundays all year round. We would also like to open on Saturdays - if we had support! Perhaps you would like to help us!
Why don't you drop by without obligation? - The huge thuja trees in the courtyard of the Stroof House had to be felled. They have been replaced by two lime trees in a baroque topiary, in keeping with the style of a listed building. - Our impressive collection of boundary stones was expanded and, above all, rearranged. - Inside the building, the seating furniture in the lecture theatre was renewed.
Our Collections have been expanded. Our historical. Specialised library is up to date. Although it is a "reference library", members can borrow books from Sunday to Friday ("weekly loan"). - The archives have been expanded to include several private collections, including original Stroof documents. Their transcription is an ongoing task; we would also be pleased to receive support here! - Our antiquarian bookshop has been completely refurbished and the holdings have been catalogued in detail, making it easier to make a selection on site and now also enabling purchases to be made digitally. - Our picture archive has reached a certain degree of completion; it can be used by anyone. - Our "Beuel Centre for Family Research" is fully functional: Anyone who wants to trace their ancestors should come to us - free of charge! - advice.
With regard to our endeavours to preserve historical monuments, we may refer to the Combahn monument area statutes which, as you know, was launched on our initiative. - Our endeavours to secure the Vilich grave crossesThe research project, which is known to date back to the Gothic period, has borne its first fruits: two crosses secured by the TH Cologne are now being installed in the Vilich church.
Two Wayside crosses were thankfully restored by the city (SGB): The so-called "Schöffenkreuz" from 1663 (below the Stroof house, corner of Käsbergstr.) and the oldest in the entire district, from 1638 (opposite the junction of Mühlenberg and Stiftsstr.). - Also our Roman monument on the Rheindamm, which had been badly vandalised, has been restored.
With various listed buildings, which are uninhabited and threatened by decay, we are constantly endeavouring to make them structurally safe. - We would like to preserve a medieval well that is in danger of being buried. - For the city. Monument Authority, we are developing the scientific basis. basis for the monument protection of the Beuel railway cemeteryditto for the mountain cemetery in Küdinghoven.
We have also taken care of Natural monuments We took care of the basic irrigation of the giant sequoia trees, especially at the Vilich church, as well as securing the northernmost Scilla bifolia/bluestem occurrence in the Rhine Valley, on the Finkenberg.Village lime tree" above the Stroof House (to conceal the bulky solid building there/formerly the Düsterwald restaurant).
We continue to exert pressure on the city to restore the archaeological site. Site from the 11th cent. Stone cottage in Oberkassel. We want this to be integrated into the neighbouring HärlePark. We are also interested in archaeological. explorations around the Limperich castle on the Finkenberg and the Möllestomp ruin on the banks of the Rhine in Limperich. - We have discovered that there is another one in the Geislarer Feldmark. Roman training camp has existed. One has also been excavated within the village of Vilich. The report on this can be requested from us, as can the previous reports on the unique finds from the 2018/20 excavations on Niederkasseler Straße!
Once again, important Historical literature about Bonn on the right bank of the Rhine by Dr. M. van Rey, the former town archivist, and by Dr. Andrea Stieldorf, professor in Bonn, the latter on the oldest collegiate seal of Vilich ("Typar") from the 13th century and on the earliest Vilich charters (all in colour pictures). We also organised a lecture by Johanna Beutner in the Vilich church about its medieval predecessor basilica. The lecture is now available in print. - All the books are already in our library, where they can also be consulted (the large parlour is our reading room!). We also want to help the Beuel painter Helmut Degenhard out of his unfortunate obscurity with a monograph.
After several years of endeavour, we have succeeded in assigning historical names to streets in Vilich: Gerberga-street along the Beuel cemetery hall (renaming of the former Gerhardstraße) and Mathilda-Straße (renaming of Gartenstraße from Schultheißstraße to B 56). Gerberga is Adelheid's mother, Mathilda the builder of the former Staufer pilgrimage basilica (see Beutner lecture!). Both are of high noble lineage, one is related to the Ottonians and the Carolingians; the other is a daughter of the Ezzones. - We will provide additional explanatory signs for each.
The digital solutions we have created and launched are Audioguide monument tours, multilingual, plus an independent children's tour, are very popular: "Vilich to Beuel" and "Beuel to Pützchen.". We also offer an audio tour inside the Stroof House, a guide through all its rooms.
We continue to endeavour to work with Events in the Stroof House ("StroofKolleg") and Excursions to bring our many interested members - now numbering over 350 - into contact with our history and its visible evidence, the monuments. This year, we have organised a large number of such events; one highlight was the guided bus trip to the Ahr valley, which had been ruined by flooding; another was once again the Open Monument Day.
We will present our event programme for 2024 in January.
With all good wishes for the new year
Carl J. Bachem, Chairman - Claudia Knöfel, Deputy Chairwoman- Bernd Müller, Managing Director Johannes Junglas, Treasurer - Carola Nathan - Angela Neuhaus – Dorothee Norbisrath
End of December 2023