Waake Manor

Waake was first mentioned in documents in 1013 as an estate owned by the Marienkloster in Hildesheim.

In the 12th century, it was part of the Duchy of Saxony, later it passed into the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

The Lords of Uslar mortgaged the village in the 14th century. However, the population also had to pay tributes to the Lords of Plesse and the Landgrave of Hesse.

A conflict between the city of Göttingen, striving for autonomy, and Waake arose in the 14th century, when Göttingen felt threatened by Waake as a sovereign stronghold. In a subsequent letter of reconciliation to the city council, Konemundus dictus de Hilckerode appears in 1312, who is considered the owner of the estate and house in Waake (in villa Wakene), and thus possessed property in Waake. In 1385, documents report on Bertold von Hildekerode, a supposed successor to Konemundus. Around the same time, the family von Waken also named themselves after the village. A representative of this lineage, Cunemund von Waken, together with the scholastic Heinrich von Grone, founded the Magdalena Vicariate in Nörten-Hardenberg in 1341.

In 1700, the Waake manor with all rights of use was transferred by the Lords of Uslar-Gleichen as a fief to the Hanoverian Chief Forester and Master of the Hunt Hartmann Ludwig von Wangenheim. Estate administrators in Waake and court administrators from Göttingen represented the nobility residing in Hanover. The estate with its stables and the castle (visible today on the B 27 at the village exit towards Göttingen) was thus the manorial and administrative center of the village. In the 18th century, the manor comprised almost 480 Morgen of arable land and 40 meadows. In the following years, the estate was gradually expanded, with the addition of the Neuwaake outpost in 1820 and the Kescheroe estate in 1823, which owned 285 Morgen of arable land and three meadows. Furthermore, the tithe from the Kescheroe estate, which amounted to 3500 Morgen of farmland, was claimed. The entire area of the Waake manor reached its maximum extent with 750 Morgen of land and 35 Morgen of meadows, excluding the Kescheroe estate, through continuous territorial acquisitions in the mid-18th century. Cereals, legumes, potatoes, and vegetables were cultivated, and intensive livestock farming was also carried out. At that time, the village of Waake had the character of a spinner and cloth maker village, which meant that a flock of a thousand sheep was continuously kept on the economic area for wool production. A brewery and distillery are also attested for this period, but they were not successful and quickly ceased operations.

In 1851, the estate became the free property of the Wangenheim family, and ten years later, a family fideicommiss.