risk of collapse. In November 2008 the district court at Stuttgart decided that the bankrupt operator had to return the property to the town. In May 2010 the restoration works began. The new owner, Ming Ze Schaumann, again had specifically employed Chinese craftsmen. At 15. May 2011 the renovated China House was officially reopened. At the centre of the former village of Heutingsheim was the townhall built in 1781 in the classicistic style within a warren of narrow alleys and side streets. The Protestant parochial church St. Simon and Jude, a late gothic west tower church from 1487, has a beautifully sculpted chancel with a ribbed vaulting. The headstones show the biblical apostles Simon and Jude (Thaddeus) and Mary with the Child as Queen of Heaven. The pulpit rests on a stone sculpture: the pulpit bearer, a kneeling man, created by Anton Pilgram, bears it upon his shoulders. The big clock in the tower inscribed Osanna dates from 1492. Heutingsheim too has its castle. The building complex erected around 1700 with its manor and triple-winged outhouse is delimited towards the street by a castle wall. It is a typical example of a country manor of a minor noble family from that time. Untypical for the region, however, are the Low German elements in the timber-framed gables of the outhouse as seen from the road. Nature preservation The nature reserve Altneckar with its riparian forest and the adjacent grassland valley is an idyllic local recreational area and ecological oasis between the townships of Freiberg, Pleidelsheim, and Ingersheim. On the near side of the A 81 motorway the high railway embankment of the former railway line from Backnang to Bietigheim is protected and cared for by the town and the local committee of the BUND ("Union for the environment and nature conservation Germany") as a dry biotope. On the far side of A 81 the railway line cut a deep rut into the landscape. By the joint efforts of the town and the BUND there too a protective area was created, in the occurrence a dark moist wood biotope. The railway bridge crossing the A 81 had been destroyed on 20. April 1945 by retreating German forces. After World War II the bridge was not rebuilt and the railway line abandoned. Notable residents Johann Friedrich Flattich (1713–1797), Protestant minister and educator, born at the borough of Beihingen. Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Breyer