📝 Detailed information
🏢 About the local organisation
The history of Open Houses dates back to the mid-1980s, when a group of young people began to restore actual disused village churches. The focus lies on restoration and public use of historical monuments, which allows a long-lasting and effective recovery of the buildings. Currently Open Houses has several historic buildings in its care. All of them are attractive ensembles which display centuries of history. But most of them stood vacant for a very long time and suffered serious structural damage.
💼 What the programme involves
The participants will work on the reconstruction, recultivation and maintenance of the historical park which had been abandoned for a long time. This will include cutting trees and bushes, constructing small walls from natural stones, levelling the ground as well as cutting and collecting grass. Furthermore the volunteers will lay out new paths in the park and pave them with stones.
Additionally, some small handcraft works will be carried out like painting a storage house, building new fences in traditional style and constructing benches, possible some handcraft works in the historical rectory will be carried out, too.
Because the large park which originally had extended till the lake is hilly and inaccessible for vehicles every material has to be transported by the volunteers with wheelbarrows. The participants should be aware of physically demanding works.
🏠 Accommodation on site
simple conditions, shared rooms with mattresses, bathroom with limited hot water
📍 About the location
Parum Rectory is located in a small village in the North of Germany, about forty kilometres south of Rostock and the coast of the Baltic Sea. The village consists almost only of a church, the former rectory, the former church school and two old farmhouses.
The representative rectory, built in 1841, that time as the biggest in the rural areas of whole Northern Germany, is similar to a typical manor house of this period. The original room structure is almost unchanged, and a lot of original details are well preserved, although the house had been mostly abandoned since the 1970ies.
Since several years Open Houses is reconstructing Parum Rectory. The first urgent task was the restoration of the roof construction, what was managed with a consistent level of craftsmanship, using mainly historic wood timber joints. This way Open Houses could preserve an atmosphere, which does not tell the once serious damage.
Behind the rectory a historical park is situated dating back to the 19th century with many old, partly very rare trees.
ℹ️ Additional information
no remarks