[en] The cross section for the elastic photoproduction of ρ⁰ mesons (γp→ρ⁰p) has been measured with the H1 detector at HERA for two average photon-proton centre-of-mass energies of 55 and 187 GeV. The lower energy point was measured by observing directly the ρ⁰ decay giving a cross section of 9.1±0.9 (stat.)±2.5 (syst.) μb. The logarithmic slope parameter of the differential cross section, dσ/dt, is found to be 10.9±2.4 (stat.)±1.1 (syst.) GeV^-2. The ρ⁰ decay polar angular distribution is found to be consistent with s-channel helicity conservation. The higher energy cross section was determined from analysis of the lower part of the hadronic invariant mass spectrum of diffractive photoproduction and found to be 13.6±0.8 (stat.)±2.4 (syst.) μb. (orig.)