Stadt Neuenstadt am Kocher

"The Old Weathercock"

"At Cleversulzbach in the Underland, A hundred and thirteen years did I stand, Up on the tower in wind and rain, An ornament and a weathervane."

With his rhyming-couplet idyll "The Old Weathercock", the great German lyricist Eduard Mörike immortalised the village of Cleversulzbach, where he served as a pastor from 1834 until 1843.

Much today is still reminiscent of the famous poet:
the graves of the poets Friedrich Schiller’s and Eduard Mörike’s mothers, the stately parsonage building (1755), the parish gardens, the church and, above all, the lovingly designed Mörike Museum in the former schoolhouse.

The history of Cleversulzbach has long been closely intertwined with that of Neuenstadt. Belonging to the administrative district of Neuenstadt, the town came under Württemberg rule in 1504. Ecclesiastically, the village was for centuries a branch of Helmbund-Neuenstadt and did not receive its own parish until 1592.

The "Kirchweg" (Church Way) from Cleversulzbach to Helmbund Church, a route which Mörike often walked, is a reminder of this connection.