Brandnergraben and Beckenweiher

Original meadow landscape along the Brandnergraben, which merges into the village of Weiherhammer at the level of the Beckenweiher (Hüttenwerkweiher) with a view of the BHS factory premises.

The Weiherhammer ironworks was built in the Upper Palatinate community of Weiherhammer, which now has the same name, between Mantel and Etzenricht on the Beckenweiher and its tributary, the Röthenbach, which flows into the Haidenaab.Around 1674, the sovereign considered building a blast furnace on the Beckenweiher due to the increasing shortage of wood and charcoal in the area around Amberg and Sulzbach.When the Philippsburg hammer mill was then shut down due to a lack of coal, the sovereign Theodor Eustach began to have a blast furnace built on the eastern bank of the Beckenweiher (the so-called blast furnace next to Mantel) around 1700.On October 17, 1719, a hammer hut was inaugurated that was powered by water from the Beckenweiher.The houses of Weihersdorf were built on the west side of the Beckenweiher so that the wooden houses were protected from flying sparks; the settlement was given the name Beckendorf.He got into a dispute with the electoral forester Franz Benno von Hann zu Mantel over hunting in the Beckenweiher and the removal of wood, which put the factory in trouble due to the lack of charcoal deliveries; the dispute was only ended by the intervention of the government.(Source: Wikipedia)