Bückeburg

Bückeburg lies in Lower Saxony close to the North Rhine-Westphalia border, beside the northern slopes of the Weserbergland. The town stands within Schaumburg district in a setting of low ridges and open farmland. Houses gradually gathered around its castle, and a town wall protected the growing settlement in the seventeenth century. The nearby Weser and the passes through the hills made this part of Lower Saxony a meeting place between northern German courts and the wider routes of the North German plain.

Bückeburg was the capital of the small state of Schaumburg-Lippe, a county that became a principality in 1807. Bückeburg Palace was the princes' residence; its buildings span seven hundred years, with major work in the sixteenth, seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. The town church was among the first Lutheran churches built after the Reformation and contains a celebrated bronze font by Adriaen de Vries. Johann Gottfried Herder served as court preacher from 1771 to 1776, and composer Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach worked at the court from before 1751 until his death. These institutions gave Bückeburg a political and cultural importance beyond its modest population.