Bomhof

The Bomhof is a small ringwork standing on a terrace 200 metres above sea level near Lügde in the Lippe district. It lies about 900 metres south-east of the Herlingsburg and covers roughly 400 square metres. Only low banks remain of the once higher earthen walls. Two rows of wooden posts once stood inside and outside the rampart, their post-holes still visible today. Archaeologists Carl Schuchhardt and Otto Weerth examined the Bomhof in 1902 while digging at the Herlingsburg. They found many shards of pottery from the 9th and 10th centuries scattered across the interior. Schuchhardt thought the site might have been a Frankish watch-post, while others wondered if it had served as a small medieval nobleman’s castle. Old hollow ways run past the earthworks, adding to the sense of a once busy place. Visitors today see grass-grown banks and a few low mounds where the wooden posts once stood. The site is quiet, surrounded by farmland and woodland. There are no buildings left, only the faint traces of the old defences. The Lippe Landesmuseum looked again in 2012 but found nothing new to change the earlier view of the site.