A Tour Round Our Historic Town

If you come to Hameln you will find that the local Tourist Office have laid out a tour of the town you only have to follow... what else The Rats

As part of our geography work Year 4 complete work based on the town.

So let them take you round our historic town.

Hameln is not only famous for the Legend of the Pied Piper, but also because of its many timber framed buildings (fach häuser) many which remain in an area of the town called the Alt Stadt (Old Town).

Hameln was once a walled town and while none of the original walls remain you can still get a sense of the dimensions of the old town as the ring road follows the line of the old walls. A short length of wall has been rebuilt along the Thiewall.

If you want to see a map of the town click on the attachment at the bottom of this page


We will start our walk from the Bus Station (Bus Bahnhof).

Sorry about the pictures but it was snowing "In April" when we did this and the River Weser was "Deep and Wide".

If you go through the cut
(gasse in german) you will find yourself in the Pferdemarkt (Horse Market) here you will see the Markt Kirche of ST. Nicholai. The church was built in 1200 and to the right of the church you can see the stage where the Pied Piper play is acted out each Sunday in summer.

At the back of the church you find a reminder of another Hameln legend. This is the Heptad Stone which commemorates the multiple birth of 7 children on the 9th of January 1600 to a local man Tile Röner and his wife Anna. There is no documentary evidence for the births and the babies are all said to have died shortly afterwards.

Opposite the front of the church you can see the Dempterhaus. This was built for the town mayor Tobias Dempter in 1607-1608. It is heavily decorated and built in the Weser Renaissance style.

At the other side of the stage you can see the Hochzeithause (Wedding Hause). This was a festive hall built for the town people between 1610 and 1617. Originally it had entrances on the ground floor to a wine merchant's , a chemist and the local weights and measures office. Today it houses the town registry office , town archive and a library. In germany a couple must have a civil ceremony before they can be legally married , so you can often see wedding parties around this building on Friday evenings and Saturdays. On the gable end you can see a glockenspiel which is also connected to a carousel which shows the story of the Pied Piper.

 

Map hameln.jpg
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Tour Continued