The Biet — Hillside, village signs and local history
Schellbronn at 527 m on the Biet plateau: coats of arms on village signs, the Gemmingen lords and how Hamberg, Neuhausen, Steinegg and Schellbronn became one municipality.
Schellbronn sits on the Biet plateau between the Nagold and Würm valleys — at the forest edge, around 527 m above sea level. Biet is the local name for the former Gemmingen territory: eight forest-clearing villages on the heights, including the four districts of today's municipality of Neuhausen — Hamberg, Neuhausen, Schellbronn and Steinegg.
At village entrances, the signs still bear the coats of arms of the former municipalities. Neuhausen shows a red house on silver — a speaking coat of arms for the name "Neu-Hausen" (new houses). Schellbronn bears a red fountain with silver water on gold, echoing the old name Scaltebrunn. Steinegg splits its shield: three black wolf-traps on gold in front, two gold bars on blue behind — in the colours of the Barons of Gemmingen. Hamberg shows a silver ploughshare on a field divided blue and gold, again in Gemmingen colours.
From 1407 the Biet was ruled by the Barons of Gemmingen-Hagenschieß. Diether V. von Gemmingen acquired Steinegg castle from the Lords of Stein; his son Diether VI. completed the lordship with eight districts. From Steinegg the Gemmingen family governed until 1806 as a small knightly territory behind the Hagenschieß forest — Catholic, surrounded by a largely Protestant landscape. The Biet chapel trail and the forest chapel by the castle still tell that story.
For a long time the four villages were independent municipalities. Under Baden-Württemberg's municipal reform, Hamberg, Neuhausen and Steinegg merged on 1 March 1973 to form the municipality of Neuhausen; Schellbronn joined on 1 January 1975. Since 1980 the combined municipality has shared one coat of arms: again Neuhausen's red house — with a shield base in blue and gold as a link to Hamberg, Steinegg and the former territorial lords.
You still feel the hillside today: clear air, wide views over meadow orchards and hedge-country, morning mist in the pines, stars at night without city glow. Staying at Das Bollenhut Haus means being in the middle of this landscape — geographically and in a region with its own history.