Agroneum Alt Schwerin

At the village of Alt Schwerin in the farmland of north-east Germany, close to the Mecklenburg lake district, is the Agroneum, an open-air museum of agriculture. Visitors see a manor house and park, farm buildings, windmills, a forge and a sawmill with many other village buildings. A museum complex contains artefacts, machinery, reconstructed interiors and informative displays. The museum was established in the 1980s under the German Democratic Republic and has continued to be developed. It explores the themes of arable farming, livestock, farm machinery, storage, rural crafts and domestic life. Among the objects on display are tractors, traction engines, a crop-spraying aircraft, ploughs and a narrow-gauge railway. A row of cottages is furnished to show changing living conditions: in 1870, 1910, 1942 and 1970. The museum has a farm shop selling agricultural produce and a bistro that serves the country cooking of the region.