Harly Forest
| Harly Forest | |
|---|---|
| Highest point | |
| Peak | Harlyberg |
| Elevation | Lua error in Module:Convert at line 1851: attempt to index local 'en_value' (a nil value). |
| Coordinates | Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
| Geography | |
| Country | Germany |
| State | Lower Saxony |
The Harly Forest (German: Harly-Wald, also Harlywald or just Harly) is a hill range up to 256 m above NN in the district of Goslar in southeastern Lower Saxony, Germany.
Geography
It is located in the northern Harz Foreland east of the Salzgitter Hills, about 11 kilometres (6.8 mi)—as the crow flies—northeast of Goslar and immediately north-northwest of Vienenburg, surrounded by the villages of Weddingen, Lengde and Beuchte (Schladen). The Harly is 6 km (3.7 mi) long by 1 km (0.62 mi) wide and its eastern foothills overlook the valley of the Oker River. The Harly Forest may be reached from the A 395 motorway, the B 241 and B 82 federal roads and the side roads and tracks branching off the those roads.
The highest hill in the Harly Forest is the Harlyberg, roughly 256 metres high, atop which an observation tower, the Harly Tower (Harlyturm), stands.
Geology and Ecology
The Harly is a tectonic salt formation. In the technical language of geologists the Harly Forest is classed as a "Geological Anticline" (Geologischer Schmalsattel). Ecologically the Harly Forest is a near-natural hillside forest (naturnaher Hangwald) on warm-dry chalk and silicate habitats.
Harly Castle
The southeastern edge of the ridge lies immediately above the Oker Valley and from 1203 was the construction site of an Imperial castle, built at the behest of by King Otto IV of Germany to control the trade route to the Imperial City of Goslar, whose citizens had allied with his rival Philip of Swabia. Otto, Holy Roman Emperor from 1209, stayed at the Harliburg several times. Upon his death in 1218, the castle passed to his Welf heirs. On the 1290 Imperial diet in Erfurt, the Hildesheim prince-bishop Siegfried II of Querfurt accused Duke Henry I of Brunswick of using its favourable location for ambushes and highway robberies. He had the castle besieged for several months and eventually completely slighted.
Potash works
A vestige of former mining activity in the area is the historic Vienenburg potash works and fertilizer plant with its old shafts: numbers I, II and III. In operation from the 1880s, the mine was closed after a massive brine inrush in 1930. The former Cistercian monastery of Wöltingerode, located on the southern perimeter of the ridge west of Vienenburg, and its abbey distillery are also worth seeing.
