Engländer, Forest house in Sailaufer Forst, Spessart, Germany

The Engländer is a two-story forest house on the Spessart ridge between Jakobsthal and Sommerkahl, built in 1845 by King Ludwig I. Its upper story and steep gable are clad in dark brown shingles, while the ground floor is light plaster with dark brown half-timber framing and blue-shuttered windows. An attached building with a red tiled roof, brick chimney and three dormer windows stands to its left.

King Ludwig I had the forest house built in 1845 and inaugurated it with Queen Therese on 16 August 1846. It was destroyed in the Second World War and rebuilt afterwards. The name goes back to a letter about a "Gländer" hut that the king misread as "enGländer", prompting him to order the building.

The name Engländer long puzzled locals: some traced it to the Old High German word Egelter, meaning "hedgehog wood" for stunted conifers, others to a slain Englishman carrying money from the Battle of Dettingen. A 1931 lecture instead credited a Bavarian forester's letter, misread at court as "am enGländer Hüttenbau", which prompted King Ludwig I to order the hut built. The Engländerstraße in Sailauf, Jakobsthal and Vormwald is named after the house.

The forest house sits on a mountain saddle at 502 to 520 metres between the Steigkoppe and Spindelberg peaks, where the winding county roads AB 2, AB 23 and AB 19 meet directly at the building. The Eselsweg long-distance trail passes by; the Degen-Weg ran past until 2011. The ski slope is around 400 metres long, with two double-bracket drag lifts and a children's lift.

The name likely stems from a misunderstanding: a forester's Bavarian dialect letter to the Hofkammer in Mainz, partly illegible, was read by King Ludwig I as "am enGländer Hüttenbau". He came to the Spessart looking for the hut, found none, and ordered it built.