Bauernhaus-Museum

Description

In the Bärbroich district of Bergisch Gladbach, the Bauernhaus-Museum Oberkülheim presents a private open-air ensemble illustrating rural architecture and domestic culture.

The history of the collection began in the early 1950s with an ethnographic collection of objects from which the idea of an open-air museum emerged. In 1973 a historic farmstead in the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis was acquired that would otherwise have been lost to a new construction project. The buildings were dismantled and re-erected at the Oberkülheim site in their original form. The ensemble was then gradually supplemented with further historic buildings. At the end of 2018 museum operations were discontinued; a reopening is currently uncertain.

The complex includes, among other things, a remise housing large and small agricultural implements, the farm entrance and a house chapel. The ensemble also comprises a bakehouse with the attached “Herzhäuschen”, a washhouse with a collection of irons, a bee house and a draw-well, in whose shaft more than 1,500 finds were recovered. Several living rooms are fully furnished with original antique furniture and fittings, providing a direct impression of traditional rural everyday life.