A surprise under a car park
Nobody expected anything from the eleventh century to survive in Hamburg.
Dirtsc โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Uwe Rohwedder โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Uwe Rohwedder โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Uwe Rohwedder โ CC BY-SA 4.0
The foundations of an eleventh-century tower displayed beneath a modern office building in central Hamburg, and the oldest known stone structure in the city. The foundations were found in 1962 during excavation for a car park. It was a surprise: Hamburg lost most of its old fabric in the fire of 1842 and then in the bombing of 1943, and it was assumed nothing survived from the early centuries. The original tower was about nineteen metres across with walls some three and a half metres thick โ meaning it was a serious fortification rather than a watchtower. It was most likely built when the bishop and the city were in conflict over authority. What you see today is a ring of exposed stone inside a glazed basement beneath the modern building, lit and displayed as it was found. The stop is a matter of minutes. But it earns them in Hamburg specifically: a city where everything appears to date from the nineteenth century or later, and this is almost the only thing that takes you back far beyond that. It is free to see from the street through the glass.
Nobody expected anything from the eleventh century to survive in Hamburg.
The wall thickness suggests a tower built in a struggle for authority, not for watching.
Hamburg lost its old fabric in the 1842 fire and the 1943 bombing โ this is what remains.
Speersort, old central Hamburg
A fire that broke out in May 1842 and burned for three days, destroying about a third of the old city including churches, the town hall and thousands of houses, and leaving some twenty thousand people homeless. The city was rebuilt afterwards on a wider plan with broader streets and strict building regulations โ which is why Hamburg today looks like a nineteenth-century city rather than a medieval one, despite its far older history.
No. It is a stop of minutes on a walk through the old centre near St Peter's church. But it is worth stopping at because it answers a question that occurs to every attentive visitor in Hamburg: where is the old city? The answer is that it burned twice, and this is what remains.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet โ be the first.