Maximilianpark in Hamm

I dont know if there is such statistics, but the North Rhine-Westphalia region in Germany is the unequivocal leader in the remediation of lands that were previously used for mining or for factories. In almost every city here you can find parks or residential quarters created on the site of former factories, quarries or heaps.

We have already visited many such places, here are just a few:

Duisburg Nord Landscape Park
Phoenix Lake in Dortmund
Slag Heap Haniel
Tetrahedron in Bottrop
Tiger and Turtle - The Magic Mountain in Duisburg
Zollverein Mine in Essen
Horizon Observatory
Lippepark in Hamm

Maximilian Park is one of the first such places. Mineral mining ended here back in 1914, and, over the course of many decades, the mine slowly turned into a real forest.

In 1984, a garden festival was held here, the first in North Rhine-Westphalia. Such festivals are specially held in Germany, as this allows you to regularly restore abandoned parks or even create new ones. For the festival, a huge building for coal washing was turned into an elephant. You can visit it by going upstairs in the elevator inside the trunk.


The park is divided into zones, there are restaurants, a pavilion with butterflies, a labyrinth, a rose garden, a greenhouse. The number of flowers is huge, though we arrived in the winter and did not see all this beauty. So, there will be a reason to return at a better time.




The former mine workshops are now used as restaurants and offices.




But most noteworthy is the huge number of playgrounds for children. They will have a real fun here.










Getting there: parking N 51 41.024 E 7 53.067. Bus stop Maximilianpark, Hamm (Westf), use bahn.de.