Peasant’s house from the marshland
A preservation society for local agricultural architecture was founded by the regional historian Dr. Johann Bohls (1863-1950) in Lehe in 1908. A first preserved house was erected on a premises leased from the Town of Lehe in 1909 to 1910. It now forms part of Speckenbüttel Park. The foundation stone was laid for today's open-air-museum of Speckenbüttel, which consists of eleven buildings.
A marshland house from Sandstedt (situated on the River Weser about halfway between Bremen and Bremerhaven) was acquired and transferred to the museum’s site in 1927. This house with a projecting roof, the original owner having belonged to the local lower gentry, burned down on March 16th 1946, after US soldiers had been playing with fireworks, setting the roof ablaze. Only a handful of objects on display could be saved.
Elaborate plans of the house were not available, but finally, some preserved information enabled a reconstruction. In summer 1967, reconstruction commenced on the original foundations; the topping-out ceremony took place in November the same year. The rebuilt house was handed over to the public on April 19th 1973.
Link to Open Air Museum Speckenbüttel