The Bürgerpark was created in the second half of the 19th century not far from the main railway station as a classic public garden with lakes, coffee houses and sunbathing lawns within the wooded areas.

Together they now offer visitors a wide range of leisure activities with attractions as diverse as animal enclosures, a boat hire service, a Finnish course, nature trails and mini golf and boules pitches.

Starting in the south at Hollerallee, directly opposite the Stadthalle (now Bremen Arena), the green corridor is bordered by the Torfkanal and Findorffallee to the west along its entire length and by Parkallee to the east.

The rural cultivation of Bremer Bürgerweide - originally 450 hectares of meadowland north of the city,[3] but reduced in size in the course of urbanization - steadily declined in the 1860s and was completely discontinued in 1864.

A complete design plan had been drawn up and a lot of money had been raised in the form of donations before the committee's board submitted a request to the Senate with the intention of putting a section of the Bürgerweide to a different use and creating an "urban grove".

Although Benque revised his plans again at the turn of the year 1866/1867 (including moving the large water basin - later Hollersee - further south on the advice of garden director Johann Heinrich Gustav Meyer), the first trees were planted in the spring of 1867.

In 1877, the merchant Franz Ernst Schütte was appointed chairman of the association and, as such, significantly advanced the expansion and progress of the design - not least through massive financial contributions from his assets acquired through oil imports.

In the course of the air raids, the green spaces suffered massive devastation - for example, the multi-storey parking lot and the tall observation tower in Bürgerpark, which was donated by Franz Ernst Schütte, were destroyed.

At a meeting on July 6, 1906, the committee and board of the Bürgerparkverein decided to submit an application to the Senate with the request that the trapezoidal area north of the railroad line up to Wetterungsweg - the so-called Bürgerweidekämpe - be transferred to the association for the creation of a city forest.

The park director at the time, Carl Ohrt, was responsible for the garden design, and the businessman and chairman of the Bürgerparkverein, Franz Schütte, agreed to provide 100,000 gold marks from his private assets to cover the costs.

It warmly welcomes the action of the Bürgerparkverein in the interests of Bremen, it is of the opinion that the offer of the association's friend, which has made its action possible, deserves the warmest thanks, and requests the Bürgerschaft to unite with the resolution that the desired area be transferred to the Bürgerparkverein as soon as possible under the same conditions as those laid down for the Bürgerpark.In October of the same year, two locomobiles and a steam plough with an associated water tank wagon, which had been borrowed from the Oldenburg forestry administration, were used in the course of the initial work.

After the First World War, the city forest resembled a neglected grove with no maintenance, which is why external experts suggested to park director Hugo Riggers that all the trees should be cut down, as it would be impossible to restore order there.

On April 2, a large-scale operation was carried out by nature lovers, members of the Bürgerparkverein and animal rights activists, who used inflatable boats and landing nets to rescue pike and other fish species.

They are either named after their founders (Alfred-Hoffmann-Brücke, Aselmeyerbrücken, Carl-Schütte-Brücke, Hachezbrücke, Hoffmann-Brücke, Marie-Bergmann-Brücke, Melchersbrücke from 1881/82, Schüttebrücke, Wiegandbrücke, Fritz-Hollweg-Brücke) or commemorate well-known Bremen personalities (Lambert-Leisewitz-Brücke).

Benque planned the so-called "beech view" from the swan pond to the north along the east side of the Schweizerhaushof with the idea of the typical "Thuringian landscapes" as a representation of a "lush meadow valley".

The partially hidden ditches, lakes and watercourses serve to irrigate and drain the park and are intended to give visitors the opportunity to gain new, unusual impressions and insights into the green space from the water side.

[18] In 1875, following a commission from the Bremen merchant H. Lamotte, he created Siegfried fighting the dragon from Carrara marble on a round stone plinth in the Italian capital Rome.

Works by Theodor Georgii:[19] In 1909 and 1910, Eduart Schrodt's legacy was used to erect the sculptures African Waterbuck and Noble Deer on the east side of what was then the multi-storey parking lot and is now the Parkhotel.

The Amphytrite by Kurt Edzard and the Poseidon by Ernesto de Fiori, both of which were originally made for a North German Lloyd passenger steamer in 1929, were added to the park.

The Benquestein in the oak grove, a simple granite block from the Fichtelgebirge, is surrounded by a semi-circular low bench of the same material and bears the inscription "Wilhelm " and two reliefs of a digging and a planting worker, symbolizing the activities in the park.

The latter was built in 1871 with a donation from the money and exchange broker Heinrich Christian Dieckmann according to plans by Carl Scheinpflug in the "Schweizerhaus style" and initially served as a caretaker's house and office of the Bürgerparkverein.

The Gerdes pavilion was designed by the architects Friedrich Wellermann and Paul Frölich as a wooden structure with a slate-covered roof on the beech tree canopy not far from the dairy.

In the north-western corner of the Bürgerpark, between the main watercourse and the railroad line, stands the Wätjenshaus, a country-style house built of bricks with an ornate roof, white plastered wall sections and a rain shelter accessible from the path.

The former was donated by Franz Ernst Schütte and was also designed by Wellermann and Frölich as a two-storey, octagonal central building with two side wings, which has a discreet façade with a column-supported monopitch roof facing Parkallee.

Gabriel von Seidl provided the designs for the observation tower on the hill by the Kleiner Stadtwaldsee and had a tower-like pavilion with a portico built, behind whose oak door a staircase led to the upper platform.

From the fall of 1909, the building served as a lookout point and rain shelter, but was closed again immediately afterwards until the summer of 1910, as the view of the newly redesigned park was still considered too unattractive.

However, as no rain shelter or warden's dwelling had been built in the north-eastern corner of the Bürgerpark at that time, the tobacco company decided to donate the pavilion and also covered the costs of moving it to its current location.

[30] Five years later, the dovecote in the garden was demolished and the sculptor Max Dennert created the marble group Geschwister oder der erste Schritt, financed by Franz Ernst Schütte.

In order to preserve the rural character that Wilhelm Benque originally intended for the Meierei, cows still graze on the meadows to the south of the house in the summer months.

In recognition of the great popularity of this establishment among the people of Bremen, permission was granted to extend the access paths and ornamental plantings, and the tenant was able to add a bandstand in front of the building a year later.