First land register of Grossheppach

In this register of Großheppach and Gundelsbach, referred to as the original cadastre, all buildings with the associated properties, their size and location, as well as the ownership structure at the time of 1832 are listed. There is also a map on which the individual buildings and plots of land are drawn and labeled. The addresses were added later, probably in the 1950s or 1960s. Although some buildings are numbered, they were demolished before 1832. You can view the PDF document by double-clicking on the image on the right.

Before this cadastre from 1832 there were already several inventory books - also known as "Urbare". So listings of ownership and taxes by type of use (houses, meadows, fields or vineyards). So. E.g. inventory books of the Schorndorf winery from 1400, 1484/1503, 1562 and 1603, the spiritual administration Schorndorf from 1537, 1573, 1580, 1669 and 1720, spiritual administration Waiblingen 1540 (only Gundelsbach), 1646, upper district Waiblingen. From this, however, the exact location of the property or building is very difficult to determine, since the location was described only very imprecisely. So e.g. "the house with garden joins at XY at the front, at the back to the common street". Neighbors have been mentioned, but ownership is constantly changing through inheritance and sale or swap. In addition, no maps were created.

Map section of the 1832 land register Grossheppach:


Today's view in a similar map section looks quite different but the streets are still existing as they have been 1832::

Source: Google Earch, 2022

Even if the townscape has changed significantly in many places - with a few exceptions - the streets are still the same as they were then. But street names only came after 1832. Up to then they had just numbers. Some of the street names that were added later were changed in the course of the merger into the town of Weinstadt. A corresponding list is provided in this book. Unfortunately it is only in German language.

The road to the south, to Beutelsbach or Endersbach, crossed the only bridge on the Rems past the former mill (today Brückenstrasse/Bruckwiesenstrasse). The route via today's Grunbacher Straße to Beutelsbach was not available at the time due to the lack of a bridge. The most important connecting road was the old Roman army road, from the east of Grunbach directly through the town past the guesthouse Lamm and the former town hall via Pfahlbühlstraße in a north-westerly direction.

The roads into the vineyards were of course important for the viniculture.


Some examples of my cadastral evaluation:

The River Heppach

The Heppach used to run above ground through the town. Coming from Kleinheppach and turning at the upper baking house “Backhäusle”, at the junction with Badweg, along the Kleinheppacher street to the Lamm inn, where the stream then flowed south (today covered by the Heppachweg) to the Rems. In the map from 1832, only four bridges over the water can be seen within the town.
1. A main bridge over the Rems at today's Bruckwiesenstraße behind the mill. The bridge is still in the vicinity today.
2. A main bridge over the Heppach in front of the Gasthaus Lamm in an east-west direction
3. A small one over the mill stream behind the mill (this bridge is still there)
4. A small bridge over the Heppach behind the Lamm inn.
There are no footbridges listed or shown in the map that connect the south bank with the north bank of the Heppach. However, there certainly was. Just to get to the church or to the vineyards. Perhaps the footbridges were only made of wood because of the frequent floods and were therefore not listed.
 
Water was of course also necessary for the operation of the mill. For this purpose, water was diverted from the Rems in the "Mühlgraben" and led past the mill, where a mill wheel drove the mill. The "Mühlbach" flowed into a small pond, which in turn flowed into the Rems.
 
When it rained heavily, there were frequent floods. The mill building was the lowest building in town. Markings on the mill building still showing the highest levels today.
[Picture on the right: high water markings on the mill building]

Public Wells

The residents depended on wells for drinking water supply. Most were public. Some can be seen on the cadastre map. Interesting is the well in the house at Prinz-Eugen-Platz 7 (today's bakery “Schreiber”), which was inside the house but it was public and owned by the community. Drawn in house no. 85 in the picture on the left above.

In addition, there were several private washhouses owned by wealthier families to do laundry.

[Map section from 1832. No. 85 (today, Schreiber Bakery); No. 97 is the Lamm inn.]

Wine presses

The wine presses in which the grapes were pressed belonged to the townscape and figurehead of Großheppach. They were all in the hands of the community and stood near the vineyards or in the vineyards themselves. But of course, always in such a way that the barrels could be transported away with carts.

The winegrowers brought their freshly harvested grapes there either on foot, with carts or oxcarts and let them pressed. Grossheppach had three wine presses. The “Bergkelter” wine press, above today's sports field, the “Hauernkelter”, it stood at the upper end of the street "Im Hauern" and another magnificent wine press, the “Ketschkelter”, whose original location I do not know. But it was probably deconstructed around 1929


.

[Bergkelter, Hauernhelter, Ketschkelter]

Cementery

In earlier times, the inhabitants were certainly buried in the churchyard, as was the case in many towns and also in some communities around. Due to the growth of the population or a sudden increase in the number of deaths, e.g. due to an epidemic, the place around the church became too small and another place was needed. The churchyard as a burial ground was no longer used in 1832 and a hillside a little north-west of the church was chosen instead.

The newer cemetery was also not explicitly mentioned in the cadastre of 1832, since there were no buildings on it and it was therefore just a piece of land. However, it is marked. The cemetery was located between Kirchhofgäßle and Diemerstraße and bordered directly on Kirchhofgäßle. The site was in the vicinity of a former chapel. The field name "Bei der Kapelle" [= next to the chapel] bears witness to this. The cemetery was later laid out on an even larger site and the older one was no longer used. However, after the turn of the millennium, numerous bones were found during construction work in the ground. The bones have been buried a second time in a solemn ceremony in the Grossheppach cemetery.

  Today's cemetery in Rebenstraße was laid out later. It is under monument protection.