Hidden deep in the Brohltal valley, where steep cliffs of volcanic tuff and moss-covered stones bear the marks of ancient eruptions, lie the quiet remains of Kloster Antoniusstein, also known as the Tönisstein Monastery. Today, it is only a ruin; a hauntingly beautiful echo of a time when monks prayed in its vaulted halls and pilgrims climbed through the valley to seek healing, solace, and perhaps a miracle.
According to legend, the story began around the year 1388. A shepherd from the nearby village of Kell stumbled upon a strange vision: a burning thorn bush in which a Pietà appeared; the Virgin Mary cradling the body of Christ; while St. Antonius knelt in prayer before her. It was said that this miraculous sign marked the place as holy, and soon a small chapel was built there, dedicated to Mary, St. Antonius, and St. Wendelin. When it was consecrated in 1390, the valley began to draw pilgrims who came to see the sacred image and to pray in the solitude of the forested gorge.
By 1465, the site had gained enough renown that the Carmelite Order received permission to establish a full monastery on the spot. Over the following decades, the monks constructed a church and convent buildings out of the volcanic stone that surrounded them. They led a contemplative life, but they were also practical men, drawing water from nearby springs such as the Helpert source, which was already known by 1501 for its supposed healing powers. Centuries later, the same mineral waters would help turn the surrounding area into a spa region under the Elector-Archbishops of Cologne, linking faith and health in the fertile imagination of the Eifel landscape.
For several hundred years the monastery flourished quietly. Pilgrims came and went, the monks tended their gardens, and the sound of the nearby Tönissteiner Bach mingled with the chanting of psalms. But in 1802, everything changed. During the period of secularization that swept across German lands in the wake of Napoleon’s campaigns, Kloster Antoniusstein was dissolved. The Carmelites were forced to leave, and the property passed into state hands. The Prussian authorities later sold it in 1819, and without its caretakers the monastery began to decay. Stones were taken to build other structures, and the site slowly turned from sacred ground into a picturesque ruin.
What remains today are fragments of that once-spiritual world; walls up to eight meters high, traces of vaulted cellars, and outlines of the old cloisters. The ruins stand quietly amid trees and ferns, with the murmur of the Tönissteiner Bach flowing past, the same stream that once powered the monastery’s mill below. If you wander here, you can still sense the shape of the old church and imagine the lives that unfolded within its walls: the rituals of prayer, the echo of bells, the rhythm of devotion against the backdrop of volcanic cliffs.
The famous Pietà that inspired the founding of the monastery no longer rests in the gorge. It now resides safely in the parish church of St. Lubentius in Kell, a few kilometers away, still drawing quiet reverence from those who know its story. Visitors today reach the site by forest trails that weave through the Brohltal Geopark; paths that not only lead to the ruins but also reveal the geological wonders of the Eifel, where layers of ash and pumice tell the story of fire beneath the earth.
To visit Kloster Antoniusstein is to step into a landscape where nature and history intertwine. The forest reclaims the stones, ivy drapes over crumbling arches, and the sound of water echoes through the gorge just as it did six hundred years ago. It is a place of stillness, where the spiritual past feels close enough to touch, and where the silence of the monastery lives on in the whisper of the wind and the flow of the stream.
National Geopark VULCANIC LAND EIFFEL
Brohltal Volcanic Park / Laacher See
Because of deposits from glowing clouds (pyroclastic flows) during the Laacher See eruptions, this valley was also filled up.
Over thousands of years, the stream has cut its way back into the deposits. When observing the tuff wall – also quarried in this area – one can recognize a repeated alternation between fine ash and coarse pumice layers.
The deposits occurred in surges, so that the flow was made up of multiple flow units.
In the nearby “Wolfsschlucht” (Wolf’s Gorge), one can observe in just a few hundred meters how smaller stream forms emerge from these flows, during the cutting process of the stream.
In this side valley, the stream cuts through ash streams from the Laacher See eruption down to the underlying bedrock.
Photo captions:
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View of alternating layers of material flows
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Light pumice pieces in the upper area of a flow unit
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Cascades of the Tönisstein stream
The valley continues downward over several small waterfalls, merging from several smaller sections where the stream has little gradient.
At a small slope, streams and creeks often form many winding bends, called meanders. Such formations can also be seen here.
In some areas, the valley forms a stepped structure, where the stream flows in cascades (from the Latin cascata = fall). At the foot of these cascades, the water often carves deeper into the soft ash layers and creates hollows and small caves.
The water flow accelerates locally in small rapids due to the unevenness of the bed. When such rapids occur in a larger river, they are called cataracts (from Greek katarrhous = waterfall). Famous, much larger examples are the Cataracts of the Nile in Egypt and Sudan.
Information and guidebook
for the Geo-Routes are available at:
Tourist Information Brohltal
Kapellenstraße 12, 56651 Niederzissen
Tel. 0 26 36 / 1 94 33
www.brohltal.de · tourist@brohltal.de
“Stream Fall” at the End of the Quarry Area
The small Tönisstein stream, coming from higher up, had difficulty cutting its way through the tuff into the water-rich Brohlbach, into which it flows.
Over its course, it has created three steps, between which there are relatively flat sections. The uppermost of these steps forms a waterfall, which the stream “overcomes”.
This wild-romantic waterfall step has gradually receded upstream over time, as can also be observed with larger waterfalls.
A famous example of such a retreating waterfall are the Niagara Falls in North America.
Photo captions:
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Cascades
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Cross-section through the ash flow in the Wolf’s Gorge
Above the waterfall step, the Tönisstein stream flows in a wide, flat bed of stream gravel about 2–3 m thick, which in turn lies on the surface of the ash flow.
Cross-section through the Wolf’s Gorge
This diagram shows how the Tönisstein stream has cut its way through the relatively soft tuff down to the Devonian bedrock.
The basaltic blocks that hikers can find along the stream-bed come from the reinforcement of the road embankment.
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