Geestharden house
type of rural house in northern Germany
The Geestharden house (German: Geesthardenhaus), also called the Cimbrian house (Cimbrisches Haus), Schleswig house (Schleswiger Haus), Slesvig house (Danish: Slesvigsk gård) or Southern Jutland house (Sønderjysk gård) due to its geographical spread in Jutland, is one of three basic forms on which the many farmhouse types in the north German state of Schleswig-Holstein are based. The other two basic designs are the Gulf house (including its variant, the Haubarg) and the Low German hall house. By far the best known variant of the Geestharden house is the Uthland-Frisian house (Uhtlandfriesische Haus or Frisergård), which is also referred to as the Frisian house (Friesenhaus).
Geographical spread
In spite of its description, the Geestharden house is not just found on geest, a rolling landscape that was formed as a result of ice age glacial deposition, but also in the Marsch, the flat marshlands on the North Sea coast of Germany.
Geestharden houses occur predominantly in Southern Schleswig in Germany and Northern Schleswig in Denmark. Their development is still largely unresearched, the research carried out during the period of Nazi Germany being disputed to some extent because at that time there were attempts to link the various house types to ethnic groups and thereby to support territorial claims. Geestharden houses are however rarely the only type of house in a region, they are often found together with four-sided farms (Vierseithöfen) or – especially in the southern part of Southern Schleswig – with Low German hall houses.
The Uthland-Frisian house with its structural adaptations for flood-prone regions is mainly found on the islands and Halligen of North Frisia.
History
Just like its southern neighbour – with which there is some geographic overlap – the Low German Hall House, this type of house is considered to be a development of the Bronze Age Germanic longhouse (Germanisches Wohnstallhaus). This, in turn, was based on the Neolithic longhouse which came from outside the Germanic culture and was considerably more widespread.
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