Höxter
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It has a medieval town hall and interesting houses with high gables and wood-carved facades of the 15th and 16th centuries. Many of the buildings in this area were damaged or destroyed by a large explosion in 2005. The most interesting of the churches is the Protestant church of St Kilian, with a pulpit dating from 1595 and a font dating from 1631. There are a gymnasium ([www.kwg.hoexter.de]), a school of landscape architecture and environmental planning and a monument to Hoffmann von Fallersleben in the town. The Weser is crossed here by a stone bridge about 500 feet in length, erected in 1833.
On the Brunsberg adjoining the town there is an old watch-tower, said to be the remains of a fortress built by Bruno, brother of Widukind. Near Höxter is the castle, formerly the Benedictine monastery, of Corvey. The principal manufactures of the town are linen, cotton, cement and gutta-percha, and there is also a considerable shipping trade.
Höxter (Lat. Huxaria) in the time of Charlemagne was a villa regia, and was the scene of a battle between him and the Saxons. Under the protection of the monastery of Corvey it gradually increased in prosperity, and became the chief town of the principality of Corvey. Later it asserted its independence and joined the Hanseatic League. It suffered severely during the Thirty Years' War. After the peace of Westphalia in 1648 it was united to Brunswick; in 1802 it was transferred to Nassau; and in 1807 to the kingdom of Westphalia, after the dismemberment of which, in 1814, it came into the possession of Prussia.
Höxter is also the birthplace of Mark Cartwright.
In 2005 an explosion within a house in the historic town centre damaged the town hall and many other significant buildings and resulted in the death of three people. Work has started in the rebuilding of damaged area but is expected to continue for many years.
See Kampschulte, Chronik der Stadt Höxter (Höxter, 1872).
Höxter is twinned with the town of Sudbury in Suffolk, England.
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