Old Cemetery and Chapel at Bökelnburg

Beautiful tour on the ramparts of the former castle. Inside is a cemetery.
Conversion from the keep to the cemetery.

Inside the wall ring there is an old cemetery with an old chapel.

The Bökelnburg was built before the year 800. The name goes back to their location in a beech forest (Bökeln). The ring wall system had a diameter of 100 m and a wall height of 5 m. It probably also served as a refuge to protect the population from attacks by the Franks, Vikings and Slavs. The castle was protected from three sides by moors, which, however, were traversed by rivers. Traders still came to Burg via the Elbe and its tributaries on the Geest ridges. Around 1100 the castle was the seat of the counts from Stade. After the people of Dithmarschen had murdered the count, his brother, the archbishop of Bremen, organized the destruction of the castle in 1145 and had the people build the first church as atonement. The castle became the property of the church and the pastor farmed in the inner ring. When the space in the local cemetery was no longer sufficient in 1818, the Bökelnburg became the new cemetery.