Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe

Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe is a landscape park in Kassel, Germany. The area of the park is 2.4 square kilometres (590 acres), making it the largest European hillside park, and second largest park on a hill slope in the world. Construction of the Bergpark, or "mountain park", began in 1689 at the behest of the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel and took about 150 years. The park is open to the public today. Since 2013, it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its monumental Baroque architecture and its unique fountains and water features.

Bad Wilhelmshöhe, a Stadtteil of Kassel in northern Hesse, is situated west of the city centre at the foot of the Habichtswald hill range. It is also known for Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe station on the Hanover–Würzburg high-speed railway line.

The park comprises an area of about 2.4 square kilometres (0.93 mi2), stretching from Kassel up to the Karlsberg mountain at 526.2 metres (1,726 ft). At the summit of the park stands the Hercules monument, a 40-meter high pyramid with a 8.5-meter bronze statue of Hercules. Behind the monument, a series of reservoirs gather water, which passes through a complex series of channels, valves, aqueducts, and water-wheels as it flows from the monument down through the park. The water tumbles through a Baroque water theatre, grotto, fountains, two hydraulic organs, and several waterfalls (including a Great Cascade that is 350 meters long) before arriving at the pond, with the Great Fountain. At about 50 meters (160 ft) high, the Great Fountain was the largest fountain in Europe at the time of its creation in 1767. Below the pond and Great Fountain, the water runs in to ponds and pools at the Wilhelmshöhe Palace, built for the Elector of Hesse William I in the late 18th century.

The Kassel Hercules is a copper statue depicting the ancient Greek demigod Heracles (Gr. , German Herkules). It is a copy of the third century Farnese Hercules statue, created by Johann Jacob Anthoni, a goldsmith from Augsburg. Beneath the stature of Hercules are basins and figures such as centaurs and fauns who hold horns. When this water display is turned on, the pressure change produces a sound through the horns.

Originally laid out in the Baroque style of the giardino all'italiana and the French formal garden, with water features running downhill in cascades to Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, it was later re-arranged into an English landscape garden. In 1143, Canons Regular from Mainz established the Weißenstein monastery at the site of present-day Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, which was dissolved in the course of the Protestant Reformation. Landgrave Philip I of Hesse used the remaining buildings as a hunting lodge, largely rebuilt by his descendant Maurice of Hesse-Kassel from 1606 to 1610.

The Bergpark came into being as a Baroque park under Landgrave Charles I of Hesse-Kassel. In 1701, the Italian architect Giovanni Francesco Guerniero started the construction of the Hercules monument and the giant cascades. In 1785, Wilhelm (William) IX, Landgrave of Hesse started a large extension of the park, and the following year his architect, Simon Louis du Ry, designed the Neoclassical palace Schloss Wilhelmshöhe. Meanwhile, the ideals of the landscaping changed from the French Baroque to the English garden. In the course of the extension and modifications, Heinrich Christoph Jussow, apart from contributing to the design of the palace, created constructions still characterizing the park today: artificial ruins like the Löwenburg (Lion's Castle) and the Roman aqueduct, as well as extensions of the water garden like the Lac, the fountain pond, and the Teufelsbrücke (Devil's Bridge) with the Höllenteich (Hell's Pond). In 1793, Karl Steinhöfer added the Steinhöfer Waterfall to the water garden.

Garden data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).