Heiligers Brunnen

Heiligers Brunnen stands beside the Brunnenstieg path in Hanover’s Eilenriede forest, within the Kleefeld district. A sulphur-rich spring rises through a pipe among stones at footpath level, feeding the nearby historic Kopperloch bath, also called the Devil’s Bath. The setting combines woodland, mineral water and an eighteenth-century monument.

Mayor Ernst Anton Heiliger prompted the spring’s enclosure after forest workers offered him its water during a summer walk. His physician Johann Georg Zimmermann alerted court botanist Friedrich Ehrhart, who examined the clear, cold water containing dissolved iron, lime and salt. A square sandstone basin followed, carrying Latin inscriptions on three sides, although the proposed healing bath never opened. By the early twentieth century, the spring had nearly dried up.

A German inscription summarised the Latin texts in 1953, while a renewed pyramid roof followed in 1963. Restoration returned the sandstone basin to good condition in 2007. The spring once drew Hanover residents on outings, including manufacturer and art collector Bernhard Hausmann. Its most memorable detail remains the water emerging quietly from a pipe between stones beside the forest path.