Chapel of Notre-Dame-des-Bois

liturgical furnishings, altar, pews. The discreet and charming little chapel is nestled amidst the gorgeous sweeping landscape of the Hanauer Forest, in close proximity to a beautiful pond, just outside the commune of Sturzelbronn. The Erbsenweiher ("Weiher" is German for pond) owes its name to the former Erbsenthal estate, which comprised this terrain until World War II. The chapel remains the only witness of a prosperous past; all other facilities were destroyed by the bombings and violent combats which ravaged the region during the war. In 1859, Malvina de Creutzer, daughter of Charles Auguste de Creutzer, owner of the Erbsenthal estate, had the chapel rebuilt on the very same spot once occupied by another chapel which had most likely been destroyed during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Notre-Dame-des-Bois ("Our Lady of the Woods") is a barn chapel, built with dressed sandstone. Its roof is covered with plain tiles, wood and slate. The long single-nave structure has a polygonal chevet, a ribbed vault and a bell tower.