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Park Rosenhöhe
Park Rosenhöhe
daily opened
The history of Rosenhöhe Park began in 1817, when Schwetzingen's master gardener Michael Zeyher was commissioned by Grand Duchess Wilhelmine to create an English landscape garden. With the construction of the classicist mausoleum by Georg Moller in 1826, the grounds also became an important burial site for the Grand Ducal family.
However, the park owes its current splendour above all to Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig. Around 1900, he transformed the hill into a total work of art consisting of a rose dome, Italian terraces and extensive ponds. Despite difficult times – after the First World War, the park was temporarily used as farmland to alleviate famine – the complex was faithfully reconstructed after it was transferred to the city of Darmstadt in 1981.
Today, visitors enter the park through the monumental Lion Gate, a joint work by Albin Müller and Bernhard Hoetger. The heart of the park is the Rosarium: from May to November, over 10,000 roses of 200 different varieties bloom here. Together with historic buildings such as the tea house and the wide meadows, the Rosenhöhe is now a unique oasis of tranquillity and garden culture.