Buchs ZH
Buchs is a small village about twenty minutes by train away from Zurich
in a valley called 'Furttal'. A small village? Depends on how you look at these things.
We've got a little past 4'000 souls these days. The little medieval hamlet has developped
into a modern suburb over the last 25 years.
But ... have a look yourself:
| This picture shows the village from the east. It was taken in 2000. Note construction work's going on, we're still growing. |
 Click on the pic to get a panoramic view taken one year later. |
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This is the crest of our village. It's name is Buchs, or to be more precise, Buchs ZH; the ZH standing for 'Canton of Zurich'. The problem is, there are no less than four communities of this name in Switzerland, so you have to be specific (the others being Buchs SG, Buchs AG and Buchs LU .... but this is getting too far). The crest shows a tree, in German called Buchsbaum (lat. Buxus sempervirens). In English it's called a boxtree. This is where the name comes from. The roots of the community go back to the times of the Romans, who had settled the valley between the 1st and the 5th century. In fact, there is still an old roman site to be seen up the slope of the valley, where some rich roman people used to have their residence. It's some sort of a museum nowadays. In written history, the village was first mentioned in the 9th century under the name Puhsaha. |
The bottom of the valley used to be a swamp, therefore the small community was clutched to the northern slope of the valley. About a hundered years ago, work started to drain the swampy area. By and by, farming the valley became possible. There is still quite a lot of farming being done in Buchs these days, mostly vegetable growing and lettuce. As population grows and grows, however, the village slowly spreads down the slope and well into the bottom of the valley.
This is a picture of the small Parish Church of the village.
It is a rather typical church for the area with its sloping roofs both on the tower and the nave.
There's a stork's nest on top of the tower, also a typical feature (there aren't many storks around,
and if a pair starts to breed there, it's more of a nuisance because of the bird droppings on the roof).
The church as it looks today goes back to 1631 when a new church had to be built. The tower is even
older, it was built around 1500. |
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The old High Street on a quiet Sunday afternoon in spring. Just imagine, this used to be the main thoroughfare through the valley. Fortunately, traffic runs along a bypass road built about 30 years ago. |
| An aerial view of the community, taken 1922. A pure farmer's area in those days, Buchs had just above 100-200 inhabitants in those days. Note the second railway line runnung along the northern slope of the valley. It's been dismateled a long time ago, but still, the small village used to have two railway stations. | 
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Only one railway remains today, it is the one running throught the bottom of the valley and the station
is called "Buchs-Dällikon" because it serves the community on the other side of the valley as well.
Seen from the the west, the communtity looks like this:
Again, a lot of construction work seems to be done.
And since July, Buchs has it's own official Web site . It's still buggy, but see for yourself...
