Ostravorwerk, Heritage farmstead in Friedrichstadt, Dresden, Germany

The Ostravorwerk was a court-owned agricultural estate centred on a complex of buildings and yards at today's Friedrichstraße 60, with cattle yard, stables, barns and administrative buildings. About 600 hectares of farmland belonged to it. Of the former ensemble, a barn, the old cow stable and the 1835 tenant villa at Friedrichstraße 62 survive as listed monuments.

The estate's core was a farm near the old Weißeritz mouth, owned until 1535 by Duke Georg the Bearded and then by Freiberg mint master Georg von Kommerstädt. Elector Moritz bought it in 1550; his brother August turned it into a large court-supply operation, acquiring the village of Ostra in 1559 from the Meissen bishops and resettling its inhabitants to Zschertnitz and Neuostra. Farming ceased in 1917.

The name Ostra comes from the village of Ostra, whose inhabitants were resettled to Zschertnitz and Neuostra in 1559. Farmers from surrounding villages owed ploughing, hauling and manual labour to the estate, and after the Thirty Years' War Bohemian religious refugees worked the fields, housed in the so-called Drescherhäuser.

The site is protected as a cultural heritage monument and subject to special access regulations. Visitors should check in advance what areas are accessible and whether guided tours or specific opening times apply.

In the 18th century the estate's farm fields were turned into a pheasantry and menagerie, where the court kept partridges, beavers, buffalo and at times even camels alongside cattle, pigs and sheep.