Medieval Brokeloh

Brokeloh is the eastern village of the municipality of Landesbergen in the Nienburg/Weser district of Lower Saxony, on the flat farmland between the Weser and the Steinhuder Meer, about 50 km north-west of Hanover. It is first documented in 1277 in a letter from Loccum Abbey, the Cistercian monastery founded in 1163 some 10 km to the south-east, whose complete medieval buildings are among the best preserved in northern Germany.

The village’s landmark is the Rittergut Brokeloh, a manor begun in 1545 as a moated house by Clamor von Münchhausen and completed as a four-winged complex around 1600 by his son. After the family’s bankruptcy it passed through several hands until Christian Eberhard Niemeyer bought it in 1734; his descendants still own it. The estate’s meadows, fields and woods, some 60 hectares and more, are the playing field of ConQuest of Mythodea, the live-action role-playing game that has been staged here every summer since 2004 and brings up to 10,000 participants to a village of a few hundred people.

There is no station in Brokeloh. The nearest are Nienburg (Weser) and Landesbergen’s neighbour Leese-Stolzenau on the Nienburg–Minden line, with the event running shuttles and car parks on the surrounding fields. Loccum Abbey and the Weser town of Nienburg are the medieval sights within easy reach.