Buch, Rhein-Hunsrück

Buch
Buch
Municipality
	Coat of arms
	Location of Buch within Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis district
	Buch Buch
	Coordinates: 50°4′35.93″N 7°23′17.13″E / 50.0766472°N 7.3880917°E
Country	Germany
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
District	Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis
Municipal assoc.	Kastellaun
Government
• Mayor (2019–24)	Tobias Vogt
Area
• Total	13.45 km2 (5.19 sq mi)
Elevation	408 m (1,339 ft)
Population (2022-12-31)
• Total	864
• Density	64/km2 (170/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes	56290
Dialling codes	06762
Vehicle registration	SIM
Website	www.gemeinde-buch.de

Buch is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kastellaun, whose seat is in the like-named town.

Geography

Location

The municipality lies on a ridge in the Hunsrück between the deeply cut valleys of two local streams, the Wohnrother Bach and the Dünnbach at an elevation of some 400 m above sea level. The municipality’s centres (Ortsteile) of Buch and Mörz lie some 45 km south-southwest of Koblenz and 4 km west of Kastellaun.

History

In 1052, Buch had its first documentary mention. In 1332, Louis the Bavarian acknowledged to Archbishop Baldwin of Trier all the holdings of the Archiepiscopal Foundation of Trier, among which were Balduinseck (castle) and Buch. Buch belonged to the Beltheim court. Until the late 15th century, it is known that there was a knightly family named “von Buch”. Beginning in 1794, Buch lay under French rule. In 1815 it was assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia at the Congress of Vienna. Since 1946, it has been part of the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The municipality in its current form came into being on 17 March 1974 through the amalgamation of the municipality of Buch with what was until then the self-administering municipality of Mörz.

Politics

Buch, Hauptstraße 56: Saint Nicholas’s Catholic Parish Church

Municipal council

The council is made up of 12 council members, who were elected at the municipal election held on 7 June 2009, and the honorary mayor as chairman.

Mayor

Buch’s mayor is Tobias Vogt.^[1] The outlying centre of Mörz also has an administrative head on council bearing the title Ortsvorsteher. The current one is Stefanie Schneiders.^[1]

Culture and sightseeing

Buildings

The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:

Buch (main centre)

Saint Nicholas’s Catholic Parish Church (Pfarrkirche St. Nikolaus), Hauptstraße 56 – tower, marked 1723, slate quarrystone columned basilica, 1901/1902, architect E. Endler, Cologne; two basalt grave crosses, one marked 1743; basalt tomb slab; basalt warriors’ memorial; whole complex of buildings
Beller Weg 6 – former monastic estate; L-shaped estate; timber-frame house, partly slated, half-hipped roof, 18th century, commercial wing, 19th and 20th centuries; whole complex of buildings
Hauptstraße – graveyard; sandstone graveyard cross, marked 1833
Hauptstraße 21 – building with hipped mansard roof, timber-frame, sided, early 19th century
Hauptstraße 28 – building with hipped mansard roof, timber-frame, partly slated, last fourth of the 18th century
Between Hauptstraße 28 and 30 – basalt wayside cross, 18th century
Hauptstraße 39 – building with hipped mansard roof, timber-frame, partly solid and slated, marked 1802
Hauptstraße, on the way out of Buch on Landesstraße 204 – chapel, quarrystone building, marked 1858; cast-iron grave cross, Rheinböllen Ironworks, 1870
Im Gäßchen 7 – timber-frame Quereinhaus (a combination residential and commercial house divided for these two purposes down the middle, perpendicularly to the street), partly solid, 19th century
Mörsdorfer Straße 1 – Quereinhaus; building with hipped mansard roof, timber framing plastered, about 1880, stable-barn wing from late 19th or early 20th century; whole complex of buildings
Balduinseck castle ruin (monumental zone) – built beginning in 1325 by Archbishop Baldwin of Luxembourg, finished about 1332, by 1780 in disrepair, parts of the courtyard wall renovated in 1966; castle courtyard with mighty residential tower, bailey with partial moat
On a byway of Landesstraße 203, going towards Mastershausen – basalt wayside cross, marked 1775
At the Landesstraße 204/Kreisstraße 30 crossroads – cast-iron wayside cross, 19th century
On Landesstraße 203 southwest of Buch on a ridge – chapel; quarrystone building, marked 1878
On Landesstraße 204 east of Buch – sandstone wayside cross

Mörz

View of Mörz from the south

Mörz, Hauptstraße 13: Catholic Church of the Assumption

Catholic Church of the Assumption (Katholische Kirche Mariä Himmelfahrt), Hauptstraße 13 – aisleless church, marked 1735/1736, with parts of walls from the foregoing mediaeval building, conversion possibly in 1783; old graveyard, two grave crosses, marked 1771 and 1717; wooden cross, marked 1814; whole complex of buildings
North of the village – Sabelsmühle; three-floor mill building, partly quarrystone or partly slated timber framing, stable, barn, 1848; whole complex of buildings with bridge
West of Mörz – grave cross; Rheinböllen Ironworks, latter half of the 19th century^[3]

Notable people

Cláudio Cardinal Hummes, Roman Catholic theologian and Archbishop of São Paulo

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Direktwahlen 2019, Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis, Landeswahlleiter Rheinland-Pfalz, accessed 4 August 2021.
^ "Bevölkerungsstand 2022, Kreise, Gemeinden, Verbandsgemeinden" (PDF) (in German). Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz. 2023.
^ Directory of Cultural Monuments in Rhein-Hunsrück district

External links

Municipality's official webpage (in German)

[mayor-1] Direktwahlen 2019, Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis, Landeswahlleiter Rheinland-Pfalz, accessed 4 August 2021.

[2] "Bevölkerungsstand 2022, Kreise, Gemeinden, Verbandsgemeinden" (PDF) (in German). Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz. 2023.

[3] Directory of Cultural Monuments in Rhein-Hunsrück district

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