The Westerberg (i.e. western hill) in is a low ridge in

Northern Germany Northern Germany (german: link=no, Norddeutschland) is a linguistic, geographic, socio-cultural and historic region in the northern part of Germany which includes the coastal states of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Lower Saxony an ...

in the north of the collective municipality of

Börde Lamstedt Börde Lamstedt is a ''Samtgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") in the district of Cuxhaven, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approximately 35 km east of Bremerhaven, and 15 km north of Bremervörde. Its seat is in the villag ...

in the state of

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

. It is covered with

mixed forest Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is a temperate climate terrestrial habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature, with broadleaf tree ecoregions, and with conifer and broadleaf tree mixed coniferous forest ecoregions. These for ...

and, like the nearby

Wingst Wingst () is a municipality in the district of Cuxhaven, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Wingst belonged to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen, established in 1180. In 1648 the Prince-Archbishopric was transformed into the Duchy of Bremen, which was ...

ridge, it is an

end moraine A terminal moraine, also called end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance. At this point, debris that has accumulated by plucking and abrasion, has been pushed by the front edge ...

from the

Saale glaciation The Saale glaciation or Saale Glaciation, sometimes referred to as the Saalian glaciation, Saale cold period (german: Saale-Kaltzeit), Saale complex (''Saale-Komplex'') or Saale glacial stage (''Saale-Glazial'', colloquially also the ''Saale-Eiszei ...

period. Together with the Wingst it forms part of the eastern boundary of

Land Hadeln Land Hadeln is a historic landscape and former administrative district in Northern Germany with its seat in Otterndorf on the Lower Elbe, the lower reaches of the River Elbe, in the Elbe-Weser Triangle between the estuaries of the Elbe and Wes ...

. The ''Georgenhöhe'' ("George's Height") is its highest elevation at . In the middle of the Westerberg woods are ''inter alia'' a megalithic grave or

dolmen A dolmen () or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BCE) and were somet ...

, the ''Steinofen'' and a "stone garden", a collection of 106 examples of

glacial erratics A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...

. A

nunnery A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican C ...

that later moved to Himmelpforten was originally seated on the hill.Georg von Issendorff, ''Kloster und Amt Himmelpforten. Nach Akten und Urkunden dargestellt'', reprint of the edition by "Stader Archiv", 1911/1913, extended by Clemens Förster, Stade and Buxtehude: Krause, 1979, pp. 5seq. No ISBN. The convent owned Westerberg hill with its forest. The erratics are evidence of the impact of the

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

on the region.

Notes

Cuxhaven (district) Geest Ridges of Lower Saxony {{Cuxhaven-geo-stub