Ebstorf

 Whether Bach and his friend Georg Erdmann chose to travel via Celle or via Hankensbüttel, both routes meet in Ebstorf. 

Ebstorf boasts a convent which was founded in the 12th century, and the buildings you can see in the images date from the 14th century. It is a convent to this day, and it is by kind permission of the Abbess that I was allowed to stream today from the old refectory, in the convent itself.

I do wonder if maybe our (possibly pretty weary by now) travellers spent the night here. It’s about a day’s walk to Lüneburg (28km), so this might have been the last place they stopped. Ebstorf in 1700 comprised not just the convent, there were at least also the farm which supported the convent, an inn, a postal station, a toll station, and the manor house belonging to the dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. Whether the penniless boys knocked on the door of the convent, which was known to take in pilgrims, or whether they stayed in a barn on the farm is one of those things we can’t know.