Meinersen

Meinersen lies beside the Oker, where a family of Saxon nobles held a small castle on the eastern bank. The place is recorded by name in a charter issued here in 1234. The dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg established a rival stronghold on the western bank, and the castles reflected competing claims over the river crossing. In 1532 Duke Ernest of Lüneburg redeemed the ducal castle from pledge and made it the seat of the district of Meinersen. An administrative house was built on the castle site in 1769, and the parish church was rebuilt in the following decade.