The village is located north of the Harz mountain range, about 13 km (8.1 mi) south of Wolfenbüttel and 15 km (9.3 mi) northeast of Goslar. It is situated between the forested Oderwald hill range in the northwest and the confluence of the Warne creek with the Oker River in the east.
Archaeological finds on the plateau above the Oker east of the village date back to the Baalberge group of the Neolithic. In the 10th century the German royal Ottonian dynasty had the Werla Pfalz erected within their Saxon homelands of Eastphalia, like the nearby castles of Goslar, Dahlum, Grona and Pöhlde. The assumption that the spur had been the site of a Saxon sacred grove and thing assembly has not been established.
Henry was crowned King of the Romans (as Henry II) by Archbishop Willigis of Mainz and finally acknowledged by Duke Bernard of Saxony. From about 1005 he had the Kaiserpfalz at the nearby silver mines of Rammelsberg in Goslar rebuilt, whereafter Werla's importance diminished. In 1086 Emperor Henry IV enfeoffed the estates up to the Oker to the Bishops of Hildesheim in turn for their support during the Investiture Controversy. A last stay of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa to subjugate the Saxon princes upon the deposition of his Welf rival Duke Henry the Lion is documented for 15 August 1180. The surrounding lands passed to the monastery of Dorstadt, in 1240 they were granted to nearby Heiningen Abbey. Shortly afterwards the castle was abandoned and decayed during the following centuries, leaving no visible ruins. While the village of Burgdorf arose in the west, the location of Werla fell into oblivion, though a chapel at the site was still mentioned in 1817.
In the early 19th century, speculations were made on the site of the historic Pfalz Werla near the village of Werle near Kassow in Mecklenburg or at Werl in Westphalia. Not until 1875, the foundations were re-discovered by archaeological excavations, confirmed by digs of the Leibniz University Hannover and the Lower Saxony State Museum in 1926 and 1934 resp. Since 2007 the Lower Saxon state government has promoted the layout of an archaeological museum.
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