Berner Au Retention Basin

Good resting place. A nice stop for a bike tour, as it is a little way off the noisy Bernese Heerweg. The small park with a pond is nicely laid out and is often part of my jogging session.

The Berner Au is a Hamburg stream that flows through the outer northeast of the city. The stream has no actual source and forms in a meadow area south of Saseler Weg in the Volksdorf district of Hamburg. It flows in a southwesterly direction, crosses the districts of Sasel and Farmsen-Berne and after 8.3 km flows into the Wandse at Ostend Pond, which in turn flows over the Alster to the Elbe. The Klosterwiesengraben, Deepenhorngraben, Karlshöher Graben and the Wellingsbüttel Grenzgraben are worth mentioning as tributaries.In 2014, almost the entire route was declared a flood zone, which restricts the structural and design use of neighboring properties.The course of the water is predominantly characterized by green belts, allotments, forests and meadows and is accompanied by footpaths in the lower half. The upper reaches of the stream are often dry in the summer months. Many previous hydraulic engineering interventions have been reversed in recent years. Efforts have been made to restore the lower third of the stream to its natural state by creating streams and floodplain areas. In contrast, the upper reaches remained in their natural state. A leaflet published by Hamburg's Wandsbek district office describes a hike near the stream from the Trabrennbahn subway station to the Volksdorf subway station.The stream was previously also called Farmsenerbek or Farmsener Bach. The actual origin is said to have been the “Big Pond” in Volksdorf, with today's pond meadow waters flowing towards the Saselbek. It seems possible that the Berner Au used to flow from Farmsen west to the Osterbek and that the current lower reaches of the stream were cut through due to the construction of a mill on the copper pond. One of these can be found there before 1480, it was used to produce copper sheets using a water-powered hammer and was converted into a grain mill in 1810. In place of the old mill weir there is now a semi-automatic weir. There used to be a powder mill, sawmill and fulling mill nearby.de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berner_Au

small lake actually in the middle of the big city