Every design for Remscheid

High on the hills of the Bergisches Land, on the northern edge of the region, Remscheid spreads out inside the great bend of the Wupper and above the steep valleys of the Eschbach and the Morsbach.

The place has a stubborn, hard-working feel that comes from its history. Founded in the twelfth century, it stayed a small village for a long time, until mechanical engineering and toolmaking turned it into a city; the trade lives on, and the Museum Steffenshammer is one of the places that tells that story. Remscheid was almost entirely destroyed in a British air raid in the Second World War, so only around a third of the city is older than that night. What survived is treasured: the old town of Lennep with its eighteenth-century houses, Haus Cleff, and the dialect called Remscheder Platt, still spoken by all generations. In the Eschbachtal stands the first dam built in Germany to supply drinking water, and the Müngstener Brücke, the country's highest railway bridge, links the town with Solingen across the valley.

On top of it all stands the Bismarckturm Remscheid, looking out over the valleys. Wear Remscheid and you wear that view.