Bauernhausmuseum Bortfeld, Traditional farmhouse museum in Bortfeld, Germany

The Bauernhausmuseum Bortfeld occupies a Low German hall house built in 1639, a two-post timber-frame structure on a low fieldstone base with a thatched hipped roof. Behind the gate passage lies the threshing floor with low side bays; at the far end, the chamber section holds three living rooms.

The farmhouse was built in 1639 on the site of a predecessor destroyed by fire in 1566. The attic was rebuilt in 1726 and extensions were added in 1851. In 1911 Johann Albrecht, then regent of the Duchy of Brunswick, opened the museum here, one of the first open-air museums in present-day Lower Saxony. It became a branch of the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum in 1968.

The rooms display rural daily life through furnished spaces showing a kitchen, bedroom, and living area. You can see the tools and equipment that were once used in farm work.

The museum has been closed since 2006 for renovation and a planned redesign of the exhibition, and as of 2022 it had not reopened. A lightning strike in 2016 set the thatched roof on fire, causing major damage to the freshly renovated building. Check locally before planning a visit.

The building ranks among the oldest surviving two-post hall houses in the former Duchy of Braunschweig. Next to it stands a shed filled with historical agricultural devices and implements from farm life.