Eltville

The corner house in front of you, with a timber upper floor on a stone ground floor, is Eltville's oldest surviving town hall. It was built between 1511 and 1517, and the building inscription on the cellar entrance has been renewed. A court house is already recorded in Eltville in 1454. The half-timbered upper floor was put on in the late 16th century, and later alterations changed it a good deal. The town auctioned the house off in 1827. After that it was a home with a shop, then the tourist office, and since 2004 it has been a Vinothek, a wine bar. Across Grabengasse stood the old public bathhouse, first recorded in 1512. Eltville's first recorded name was Altavilla, Latin for a high-lying estate. It appears in the life of Archbishop Bardo of Mainz, who died in 1051. A Frankish royal estate was the starting point of the town, and by Bardo's time it belonged to the archbishops of Mainz. By 1313 the village had a wall. On 23 August 1332 Emperor Louis the Bavarian granted Eltville town rights, at the request of Archbishop Baldwin of Trier, who was then administering the archdiocese of Mainz. The ring of walls built after that, parallel to the Rhine, marked the edge of the town until the early 19th century. For about 130 years, Eltville was where the archbishops lived, and you will meet them again at the church and at the castle. Today Eltville calls itself a town of wine, sparkling wine and roses, and the next stop is about the sparkling wine. Walk a few steps south into Leergasse and stop halfway down the lane.

Behind the buildings on the west side of Leergasse lies the Sohlern'scher Hof, an 18th-century noble house. Anton Edler von Sohlern acquired the property in 1719. Here Matheus Müller started one of the early German sparkling wine houses. Matheus Müller was born in Eltville in 1773, the son and grandson of master coopers. In 1811 he bought the Sohlern'scher Hof as a wine estate. His son Friedrich Franz Müller worked as a buyer for Mumm and Co. in Champagne and learned the method of fermenting wine a second time in the bottle. From 1831 father and son experimented with sparkling wine, and in the 1830s they began to sell an "Eltviller Moussierender". Later they marketed it under the initials MM. Sources give different years for the start, between 1835 and 1838. The firm grew beyond the old town. Production halls, cellars and a square water tower spread west of the lane, and parts of the town wall were taken down to make room. In the second half of the 19th century the company put up an office building on this lane, and in 1928 a new main administration building followed on Matheus-Müller-Platz, designed by Adolf Abel of Cologne. A fire in 1915 destroyed part of the Sohlern'scher Hof, and of its several wings only the main house survives. Along the lane you can still see Baroque wall remains with sandstone frames. Today the Matheus Müller sparkling wine cellars in Eltville belong to Rotkäppchen-Mumm, a group formed in 2002, and the MM brand is still sold. Walk on down Leergasse to the end, where the town wall stands at its full height by the river.

Here at the bottom of Leergasse the town wall still stands at its full height. It was built after Eltville received town rights in 1332. In front of it lay a ditch 20 metres wide and 5 metres deep, and every 80 metres or so a half-round tower stood out from the wall for close defence. The walkways along the top were taken down in 1689, and after that people built houses against the wall or on top of it. The plain round tower of rubble stone is the Sebastiansturm, the south-west corner of the town fortifications. In an angle of the tower stands a wooden figure of St Sebastian. After the plague of 1666 the town made Sebastian its patron saint and put up two figures of him. Processions in his honour were held every year until the end of the 18th century. This figure first hung on a house in Leergasse. When that house was demolished, it was moved to the tower around 1920, and later it was replaced by the copy you see now. The original is in the parish church. Around this tower lay the fishermen's quarter. Outside the wall, where the Kiedrich brook flowed out of the town ditch into the Rhine, stood the town hospital. The wall and towers were part of a ring with four main gates: the Sülztor to the east, the Holztor to the north, the Kappeltor to the west, and the Martinstor to the south, towards the river. Of the gate towers, two survive. You will see the Martinstor at the next stop. Walk east along Platz von Montrichard, with the Rhine on your right, to the gate tower at the bottom of Martinsgasse.

The tower on your left with the pointed archway is the Martinsturm, the gate that led from the town to the Rhine. Wagons loaded with wine barrels drove through it down to the riverbank, where a loading crane stood in front of the castle. On the south side, in two pointed blind arches, are the wheel of Mainz and the arms of Archbishop Heinrich von Virneburg, who built the town fortifications. Above the passage hangs a wrought-iron balcony from 1738. The keystone in the vault of the passage shows the town's arms. In 1751 Count Anselm Casimir von Eltz bought the tower from the town and joined it to his house next door, the Eltzer Hof. The Eltz family had owned the property since 1629. Its buildings fill the middle part of Eltville's Rhine front and stand on the old town wall. In the 19th century the tower got an extra storey with a steep hipped roof. Now look along the riverside. The promenade with its avenue of plane trees runs free of cars from the outdoor pool to the castle. Further west, in Erbach and Hattenheim, the main road B42 runs along the bank and cuts the villages off from the river. Plans for a similar road along Eltville's riverbank went on for decades. In 1958 Erich Kapitzke founded an association to protect the Eltville and Walluf riverside, and in 1989 a northern bypass through the vineyards was finished instead. The promenade is also part of the Rhine cycle route, about 1,230 kilometres from the Alps to Rotterdam. Carry on east along Platz von Montrichard to the bottom of Rosengasse, then walk up the lane to the church.

The big Baroque house you passed at the bottom of the lane is Haus Rose. A farm "on the Rose" is recorded there in 1480. The house was rebuilt before 1739, and in 1773 it was the inn Zur Güldenen Rose. The poet Adelheid von Stolterfoth lived there from 1850 to 1855. In front of you rises the west tower of St. Peter und Paul. A church stood on this site by the 10th century, and excavations in 1933 found the remains of a three-aisled early medieval church. The Gothic church was built in the 14th century; its choir was finished by 1371 at the latest. The tower was built under Archbishop Konrad von Dhaun, who ruled from 1419 to 1434, and completed around 1490. It was built by a pupil of the Frankfurt master mason Madern Gerthener, and the west portal carries Konrad von Dhaun's arms. The Gothic spire burned, and in 1686 the Mainz cathedral architect Veit Schneider gave the tower its octagonal top with a cap. Inside, on the east wall of the tower hall, is a Last Judgement painted around 1400 by a Middle Rhine master. A vault hid it until 1961, so it was never painted over. The baptismal font is dated 1517 and is attributed to the sculptor Peter Schro. In 1984 and 1985 the artist Jupp Jost made windows for the north wall on the theme of wine in the Old and New Testament. The original wooden St Sebastian from the tower by the river is also here. The half-timbered house on the church terrace at the corner of Rosengasse is the old school. From the early 16th century until 1808 it was the town's common school. Walk around the church to Kirchgasse and follow it north a few steps to the tall stone house with the hipped roof.

This tall stone house with the high hipped roof is the Hof Bechtermünz. It was built by the Bechtermünz family, Mainz patricians first recorded in 1321. The printer Heinrich Bechtermünz settled in Eltville, probably after Archbishop Adolf II of Nassau captured Mainz in 1462. His brother Nikolaus came with him. Heinrich set up a small printing shop. He began printing the Vocabularius ex quo, a Latin dictionary, but died in July 1467 before it was finished. Nikolaus completed it with Wiegand Spieß of Ortenberg on 4 November 1467. The type came from the Catholicon printing house in Mainz. Until 1476 Nikolaus printed four more small works, and then he gave up printing; nobody knows why. The Bechtermünz brothers probably worked under Johannes Gutenberg's guidance, which is why Eltville counts as one of the early printing towns. Where exactly the press stood is not certain. The Hessian monument office places it in this house from 1467 to 1476, while the archivist Roth thought it was in the Molsberger Hof in another lane. The house you see got its block shape with the high roof around 1702 or 1703, using parts of a 16th-century building. In the courtyard, the old press house for grapes carries the date 1510 over its entrance. In 1484 Margarethe, a daughter of the Gensfleisch von Sorgenloch family, lived here with her husband Johann von Molsberg. The Gensfleisch name leads to the next stop. Today the Hof Bechtermünz is a wine estate with its own tavern. Follow Kirchgasse round to the right into Burghofstraße. The long half-timbered house on the corner is the Gensfleischhaus.

The long half-timbered house in front of you is the Gensfleischhaus. According to tradition, in the 15th century it belonged to the Mainz family Gensfleisch zum Gutenberg, and Johannes Gutenberg's older brother Friele is said to have lived here from 1434 until his death in 1447. The family had other ties to Eltville. In 1411 Gutenberg's father left Mainz with more than a hundred other patricians during a dispute with the guilds, and the family very probably moved to Eltville, where Gutenberg's mother owned a house. The house you see was rebuilt in 1681, probably after it had been destroyed. Look at the gable end facing east: the corner post carries a carved house mark with the initials "S W" and the date 1681, and the timber framing has decorative figures and braided diamond patterns. In 1877 Baroness Isabella Langwerth von Simmern bought the house and set up an old people's home. The Langwerth von Simmern family owned the large estate next door, the Langwerther Hof. Its heart is the Stockheimer Hof, built around 1550 by the Stockheim family, with a hexagonal stair tower on its north side. The family Langwerth von Simmern acquired it in 1711, and their wine estate was based there until 2018. Burgstraße, at the end of the lane, has some of the best-kept half-timbered houses in Eltville, from the 15th to the 18th century. The Gelbes Haus, the yellow house, was built straight onto the town wall after 1635. Turn right into Burgstraße. The stone bridge at the end leads over the moat to the castle gate.

In front of you is the Electoral Castle, the Kurfürstliche Burg. An older tower castle on this spot was destroyed in 1301, in a war over Rhine tolls. In 1328 the cathedral chapter of Mainz elected Archbishop Baldwin of Trier, while the pope appointed Heinrich von Virneburg, so Mainz had two archbishops at once. From about 1330 Baldwin built fortifications here as a base against his rival. Around 1340 Heinrich, by then archbishop, built the square residential tower you see, 24 metres high. In 1342 and 1343 the Eltville mason Merkelin is named as master builder. From 1345 until around 1480 this castle was the main residence of the archbishops of Mainz, and from 1349 to 1365 they minted coins here. On 17 January 1465 Archbishop Adolf II of Nassau, who lived here, made Johannes Gutenberg a nobleman of his court. Every year Gutenberg received clothing, grain and wine, and he was freed from taxes and services. A Gutenberg memorial is in the tower. In 1635 Swedish troops destroyed the castle, all but the tower. The east wing was later rebuilt in a different form. The tourist information is on the ground floor of the tower, and more than a hundred steps lead to the viewing platform at the top. The east wing is currently being restored, so parts of the courtyard may be fenced off. The castle moat and the riverside are planted with roses. Eltville has more than 20,000 rose bushes, including varieties bred for the town, "Stadt Eltville" and "Schönes Eltville". In 1988 the Society of German Rose Friends gave Eltville the title Rosenstadt, rose town. Go back up Burgstraße and turn right into Turmgässchen. At Rheingauer Straße, turn right, then right again down Freygäßchen to the riverbank.

The old manor house on the riverbank is Burg Crass, also called Schloss Rheinberg. It is considered the oldest surviving building in Eltville. It was a Freihof, a manor with special privileges, and it lay outside the town wall built from 1332. Tree-ring dating has shown that some of its timber was felled as early as 1096. The core of the house is Romanesque and Gothic, and around 1840 it was remodelled in neo-Gothic style. On the way here you passed the Stadtturm on Rheingauer Straße. It belonged to the Sülztor, the eastern town gate. The gate was pulled down in 1821, and the tower was rebuilt in its present form in the middle of the 19th century. Burg Crass belonged to the Mainz family Judens and later to the knight Philipp Münch von Lindau. In 1496 he gave it to his daughter Anna as her dowry when she married the knight Johann Frei von Dehrn. During the Thirty Years' War the house burned. In 1873 the Crass family took it over and opened an inn, which gave the house its name. In 1970 it was left to the town of Eltville. After standing empty from 1988, it was restored from 1996 by the sparkling wine house Schloss Vaux. Today it is a hotel and restaurant with a terrace on the Rhine. For the next trip, take bus 172 from Eltville station up into the Rheingau hills to Kloster Eberbach. Monks sent from Clairvaux founded the Cistercian abbey on 13 February 1136, and in the winter of 1985 to 1986 almost all the interior scenes of the film The Name of the Rose were shot there. The bus runs hourly and takes about 20 minutes. Eltville station is about six minutes' walk north of here, via Freygäßchen and Bahnhofstraße.