Heissner gnomes                                                   More pictures

When August Heissner, the company’s founder, began producing garden gnomes in the Thuringian town of Gräfenroda in the year 1872, his idea was to create products which would bring people joy and relaxation.

August Heissner is widely known as the "inventor" of the German garden gnome. He started his  business over 130 years ago in Grafenroda, Thuringia, eastern Germany, making his high quality gnomes exclusively out of ceramic and then lovingly hand painting them. The gnomes were shipped throughout Europe and  the world. Production came to a standstill in WW2 but by the 1950's there was a renaissance of the  garden gnome and the Company prospered and moved to west Germany.  The 1960s saw the introduction of the first cheap plastic gnomes by competing manufacturers and Heissner took on the competition by introducing a range of plastic gnomes. Garden gnomes are still  being made by Heissner and distributed throughout the world.

The former ceramics factory has developed in the course of a century into a modern business, operating globally. Heissner plc, now situated in the Hessian town of Lauterbach,  occupies a leading position in the production and marketing of modern garden ornaments and equipment.

 

Detail from an old Heissner catalogue/1930's

 

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