Stamping point 162 / Kreuztalsklippe

The Kreuztalsklippe is a rock formation with a viewpoint, north-east of the climatic health resort of Wieda and to the left of the small river Wieda.

From the van­tage point, you can enjoy a pic­turesque view of Ober­wie­da and the Käse­berg with the bell tow­er, the Knick­ing and the Zachariaskopf.

In 1127, Wie­da was first men­tioned as a smelt­ing works belong­ing to Walken­ried Monastery, but not as a vil­lage. After the sup­pres­sion of the peas­ant upris­ing of 1525, rebel­lious peas­ants from Thuringia moved to the Harz Moun­tains, where the free­dom of the moun­tains guar­an­teed them per­son­al safe­ty.
An iron smelt­ing works in Wie­da is first doc­u­ment­ed in 1562, the impor­tance of which is close­ly linked to the extrac­tion of iron ore from the Kirch­berg vein in the Kas­ten­tal val­ley. At the begin­ning of the 17th cen­tu­ry, the high­est blast fur­nace in the Braun­schweig-Blanken­burg Harz region at the time was built with a height of 6.84 meters. 

The present church was con­se­crat­ed in 1778 and at the same time the free-stand­ing bell tow­er was erect­ed on the Käse­berg oppo­site so that the bells could be heard through­out the valley.

In the 19th cen­tu­ry, many peo­ple from Wie­da emi­grat­ed to Amer­i­ca, which led to the blast fur­nace, which had been ren­o­vat­ed in the mean­time, being demol­ished in 1863. The work­ers helped them­selves and ran a smelter as a pro­duc­tion coöper­a­tive, which became famous for the Wie­da fur­naces built here, but was dis­solved in 1972. 

The site of the Wiedaer Hütte burned down almost com­plete­ly in a major fire on July 23, 1973 and was con­vert­ed into a spa park with a ten­nis hall in 1975.

The “Wiedaer Krip­pen­wei­h­nacht” with count­less Christ­mas trees and numer­ous crib sta­tions invites vis­i­tors to the “Krip­pen­dorf” on all four Advent weekends.

From Mit­tel­wie­da, you can reach the Kreuz­tal­sklippe from the bus stop via the sign­post­ed hik­ing trail.