French Garden

Changeful history

The French Garden was probably named after the two French gardeners, Henri Péronnet (from 1670) and René Dahuron (1680 to 1701), who were in the service of Celle’s Duke George William. It was due to Dahuron that the first comprehensive kitchen garden and pleasure garden in the court tradition of the early 17th century were established.

Between 1695 and 1696 a double row of lime trees was planted giving the park a dominant central east-west axis. This lime tree avenue was completely renewed between 1951 and 1953.

In 1705 Celle ceased to be a ducal seat and consequently the park was neglected. Only in 1772, when the Danish queen Mathilde was exiled to Celle, the park sprung back to life under the auspice of court gardener Krantz. The initial square pond was converted into the present-day round pond. The French Garden also includes the Caroline Mathilde memorial which was created by the eminent painter and sculptor Adam Friedrich Oeser and erected in 1784 on the initiative of the Knighthood and the Estates.

Soon afterwards maintenance problems reoccurred in the park. The thatched-roofed summer house erected for the exiled queen in the eastern section was demolished in 1801. It was only under the dedicated Hanoverian chief court marshall Malortie that the French Garden, based on plans by garden inspector Schaumburg, was gradually converted into an English-style landscaped garden in the mid- 19th century.

After World War I a children’s playground was established in the eastern section which still exists to this day. In the western section however a small rose garden was created (renewed in 1996), and in 1927 the Regional Institute for Bee Research (nowadays the LAVES Institute for Apiculture) was built in the northern section which had been separated from the garden.

Further Information about the French Garden.

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