by
Georg Greggenhofer (1757) of
Friedrich Karl Ludwig, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck with Wellingsbüttel Manor by
Frederick VI of Denmark (1810); now on display in the Alstertal Museum in the manor gatehouse Wellingsbüttel was first mentioned in 1296. In 1412 Wellingsbüttel became the property of the
archbishops of
Bremen. In the 16th century the first
Lusthaus was built on the site. In 1643 it became a
fiefdom of the chancellor of the last archbishop, Dietrich Reinking. After the
Peace of Westphalia (1648) Wellingsbüttel came to
Sweden but remained in the possession of Reinking, as confirmed in 1649 by
Christina of Sweden. Reinking was a
count palatine and claimed
imperial immediacy for Wellingsbüttel, which lasted until 1806. In 1673 Baron (
Freiherr) Theobald von Kurtzrock acquired the property. A
Roman Catholic, he was imperial privy councillor (
Kaiserlicher Reichshofrat), imperial ambassador to
Lower Saxony (
residierender k. k. Minister am Niedersächsischen Kreis) and master of postal services for the
Thurn-und-Taxis-Post (
Thurn- und Taxischer Postmeister). In 1757
Georg Greggenhofer designed the
gatehouse. In 1806 Wellingsbüttel was occupied by
Danish troops and Clemens August von Kurtzrock was forced to sell it to
Frederick VI of Denmark, when the king picked a quarrel over his alleged right to levy a toll on everyone crossing over the lands of the estate, which was at that time encircled by
Danish territory. In 1810 the king enfeoffed his relative General
Friedrich Karl Ludwig, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck, with Wellingsbüttel, which he elevated to a "chancellery manor" (
Kanzleigut), that is, a manor directly subordinated to the royal chancellery at
Copenhagen and permitted to operate its own
manor court. Duke Friedrich Karl Ludwig, by his only son
Friedrich Wilhelm, the last Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck and the first of the
House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, was an ancestor to both
Queen Elizabeth II and
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, as well as to the royal houses of Denmark,
Norway,
Iceland and
Greece, including
Queen Sofía of Spain, thus making Wellingsbüttel Manor in some respects a point of origin of nearly all today's European royal dynasties. During the
Napoleonic Wars the duke had to leave Wellingsbüttel. At first two squadrons of the
Lützow Free Corps were stationed there. At the end of 1813 it became the headquarters of the Russian Lieutenant-General
Alexander Ivanovich Ostermann-Tolstoy. (1850) In 1846 the
Grand Burgher of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg Johann Christian Jauch junior (1802–1880), a member of the
Jauch family, became
Lord of Wellingsbüttel. The former proprietors were offered places in the almshouse in the nearby village of Wellingsbüttel, which was erected in 1858, However, a considerable number of dispossessed people left Wellingsbüttel entirely, in such numbers that the royal chancellery at Copenhagen intervened to ask the Jauchs to keep at least the farmsteads on the land they acquired, when the teacher in Wellingsbüttel village complained that the continuing reduction in the number of paying pupils was costing him his livelihood. The Jauchs established a deer-park and directories of the parks surrounding Hamburg listed the park of Wellingsbüttel Manor as belonging to "the most beautiful". Friedrich Johann Lorenz-Meyer described it as "Elysian abundance". The hunting-grounds were expanded by leasing the adjoining
Duvenstedter Brook ("Duvenstedt swamps"), a partner in L. Behrens & Söhne. She had the manor house heightened by one storey by the architect
Martin Haller, but died soon after the completion of the works in 1892. made Wellingsbüttel part of a limited company (
Aktiengesellschaft), jointly with the owners of the manors of
Poppenbüttel and
Sasel, in order to subdivide the land and to develop the
Alster valley for housing. After
World War I the company went into bankruptcy. With the
Greater Hamburg Act Wellingsbüttel became part of Hamburg in 1937 and gave its name to the district of
Hamburg-Wellingsbüttel, today a suburban villa development. The city of Hamburg sold Wellingsbüttel Manor in 1966. The
Hansa Kolleg, co-owned by the states of Bremen, Hamburg, and Schleswig-Holstein, used the manor house as a student hall of residence from 1964 till 1996. Today the house contains a private nursing home and a restaurant. ==Alstertal Museum==