Medieval Luhmühlen

Luhmühlen is a hamlet of a few hundred people belonging to the municipality of Salzhausen in the Harburg district of Lower Saxony, west of Lüneburg on the northern edge of the Lüneburg Heath. Its name comes from a watermill on the little river Luhe; the mill is first documented in 1427, when the bishops of Verden, short of money, pawned it to the salt merchants of Lüneburg, whose medieval wealth came from the saltworks 20 km to the east. The village itself was only founded in 1764, when Elector George III (King George III of Great Britain) allowed veteran soldiers to settle here.

Internationally the name stands for horses: the CCI Luhmühlen is one of the world’s leading three-day eventing competitions and the European Championships have been held here several times, most recently in 2019. The wider heath is the setting for the September stop of the Mittelalterlich Phantasie Spectaculum, which the tour calls the ‘Fette Heide’: its event ground lies at Westergellerser Heide 1, 21394 Westergellersen, on open heathland between Westergellersen, Luhmühlen and Salzhausen.

There is no railway station; visitors come by car, or by taxi or bus from Lüneburg, about 20 km away, whose Hanseatic old town of brick Gothic churches, the Rathaus and the salt museum is the medieval anchor of the area.