Dammgut Ritterhude

The Dammgut Ritterhude stands on a rectangular site of about 45 by 75 metres beside the Hamme river in Ritterhude, Lower Saxony. Once a water fortress built in 1305 by the Knights of Hude, it later became a manor house surrounded by a moat and earthworks. The present two-storey main building dates from about 1580, with a mid-18th-century central section added after the Seven Years’ War. The estate is worth visiting for its layered history and fine architecture. The Knights of Hude fortified the place in 1309 against a coalition led by Bremen, and it served later as a base for Count Moritz of Oldenburg and the pirate Johann Hollemann. After the family died out in 1775, the manor passed to the Gröning family, who still own it today. The house retains an 18th-century staircase, a fireplace and several tiled stoves. Visitors find a moated manor with a seven-bay façade and small dormers under a tiled roof. Two single-storey wings flank the main block, and the surrounding park was redesigned in landscape style after 1800 by Isaak Altmann. A fully preserved moat still circles the house, once linked to the Hamme by a now-silted channel. The ensemble is protected as an outstanding example of a historic manor group.