Jaap van 't Veen's photos with the keyword: timber framing

Limburg - developed around a castle from the late 7th century - was first mentioned in documents in the year of 910 as "Lintpurc", when the St. George monastery was founded by Konrad Kurzbold. The town became stone ramparts in the 12th and following centuries. The construction of a new church belonging to St. George monastery started in 1200. Around that time a new castle was built south of the new church. The plague ravaged Limburg in 1344. The town then underwent a steady decline until the early 19th century, when the rise of the Duchy of Nassau (1806-1866) gave a new lease of life to Limburg. In 1827, Limburg became the seat of a diocese and in 1886 it was made district capital. Nowadays Limburg's old town offers a maze of cobble stoned streets, lined with crooked half-timbered houses some dating back to the 13th century, but most of them are ‘just’ from the 17th or 18th century.

Ledbury is a small, yet bustling and vibrant market town in Herefordshire. It offers quite a lot of beautiful Tudor timber framed black and white buildings. Among them the Market House (PiP 3) on stilts, building started in 1617 and was completed in 1668. It is considered being one of the most beautiful examples in England and still hosts markets. But for me the most picturesque part of the town was Church Lane (main picture, PiP’s 1 and 2). A beautiful medieval cobble stoned street just behind the Market House, lined with stunning timber framed structures, offering tea rooms, a museum and at the end of the quaint street a beautiful church. It felt if I was stepping back in time.

Franconian Switzerland ( Fränkische Schweiz ) is a well known tourist area between the cities of Nürnberg, Bayreuth and Bamberg. The region is a natural wonderland featuring soft rolling forested hills, steep cliffs and green river valleys. It is a backdrop for medieval castles, monasteries, churches and quaint villages with half-timbered houses. One of the most picturesque villages is (at least for me) Tüchersfeld, where it looks if the houses are dropped at random at the rocky pinnacles. Until the Thirty Years' War (1618 – 1648) there were even two castles in the village, the Upper and Lower Castle. From the Upper Tüchersfeld Castle only a view remains have survived. The Lower Castle was destroyed and rebuilt several times, till it was completely destroyed in 1691. Around 1700 a Jewish settlement was established in the remaining ruins. The Jewish settlement was destroyed by fire in 1758, but the remains of the old buildings were included in the newly constructed buildings. Till around 1870 Jewish families lived in Tüchersfeld. In 1959 the remaining buildings, known as the "Jew's Court" ( Judenhof , were bought by a private person and after a complete restoration it now houses the Franconian Switzerland Museum ( Fränkische Schweiz-Museum ).

There is quite a story - don’t know if it is true - around the construction of the old town hall (,i>Altes Rathaus): the bishop of Bamberg refused to allocate land to the city’s residents for the construction of a town hall. This prompted the townsfolk to ram stakes into the river Regnitz to create an artificial island, on which they built the town hall they wanted. The town hall was built in 1386, originally influenced by Gothic, it became Baroque and Rococo elements in the middle of the 18th century. The murals on the exterior walls were painted by Johann Anwander. The frescoes never fail to impress as they lend the facades a three-dimensional quality achieved with trompe d'oeil architecture. The combination with traditional timber framing makes the building unique. For a good reason the old town hall is Bamberg’s landmark and (most probably) its most photographed building. Today the building houses a museum with the so called Ludwig Collection.

Idstein is nestled in the soft rolling hills of the Taunus Mountains. The city - granted city and market rights in 1287 by King Rudolph of Habsburg - dates back at least to the year of 1102, when the name first appeared in a court document, involving Udalrich and Konrad von Etichestein. Count Udalrich was succeeded in Idstein by the counts of Laurenburg, relatives of the archbishop of Mainz, who gave Idstein castle to them. From the middle of the 12th century, the Laurenburg family named themselves after the castle of Nassau. During this period the city became attached to Nassau and remained so until 1866. Besides the former castle complex and the beautiful Union Church ( www.ipernity.com/doc/294067/47426278 ) Idstein has a mediaeval town centre ( Altstadt ) with about 200 timber framed buildings. The oldest remaining house (Obergasse 2) was originally built around 1410. Many of the houses date from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The two main squares - König-Adolf-Platz (PiP 1) and Marktplatz - and nearby streets are lined with numerous timber framed houses (PiP 3 and 4 ). The most magnificent and richly decorated house is the Killingerhaus (PiP 2, the central house ), built in 1615 by town clerk Johann Conrad Killing. Another remarkable building is the Crooked House (main picture). This Schiefes Haus was built in 1725 as a four storey house. Idstein is part of the German Timber-Frame Road ( Deutsche Fachwerkstraße ), connecting towns with timber framed buildings.

Around the year 1000 Stolberg ( Stollen = mining gallery, Berg = hill) was established as a settlement for miners. Iron, copper, silver, tin and gold were extracted close by. As early as the High Middle Ages coins were minted in Stolberg, reaching its heyday during the 16th century. The Old Mint (PiP 1) is one of the most beautiful timber-framed houses in town. It was built in 1534 and has acted as a mint, mining fee office and district court; now housing the local Stolberger Museum Alte Münze. The town hall (main picture) is dating back to the year of 1452. It offers a remarkable architecture, as it has no internal stairs; upper storeys only could be accessed by outdoor steps. Originally the building had 12 towers (months), 52 windows (weeks) and 365 glass windows (days). The sundial is from 1724, when the building became the town hall. Stolberg is one of the most picturesque villages along the German Timber-Frame Road. It still has about 380 timber framed houses in its centre (PiP 2 and 3).

Petite France (also called Gerberviertel = “tanners district”) is the most charming, beautiful and best preserved parts of the historical centre of Strasbourg with its bridges, black and white timber-framed buildings and winding streets. It is considered being one of the most picturesque places in France. In the early 12th century, Strasbourg began to expand southwards, extending the mediaeval ramparts right up to the delta formed by the river Ill. Petite France grew up around the four arms of the river. With houses built along narrow twisting streets the neighbourhood was markedly different to the much more bourgeois sector around the cathedral. The magnificent half-timbered houses date from the 16th and 17th centuries. Their sloping roofs open out onto lofts where hides were once dried. The canals built in the Middle Ages brought in fishermen and small industries, including tanneries (the smell of which had to be kept away from the more patrician residences of the city), three flour mills and a lots of other trades. The name Petite-France ("Little France") was not given for patriotic or architectural reasons. It comes from the Hospice des Vérolés, which was built in the late 15th century in the area, to cure persons with syphilis, then called Franzosenkrankheit ("French disease") in German. Petite France is a part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Grande Île, designated in 1988.

Timber framed houses along the river Rur in Monschau. The city originated around 1195 and takes its name from the castle situated on a hill above the river Rur (PiP2). It is mentioned for the first time in 1198 as Mons Ioci and then in 1217 as Munioie and as Monjoje in 1226. Monjoye dominated the written form during the Late Middle Ages and in the Early Modern Times. Around 1800, the Montjoie form arose during the French rule in the Rhineland. By official decree, the name was ‘Germanized’ into Monschau in autumn of 1918 as the result of the lost First World War and the ensuing Francophobia.

Chester Rows can be found in the four main streets in the centre of Chester. They consist of covered and continuous half-timbered walkways at the first floor with shops and other premises. At street level there are also retail premises, which can be entered by going down a few steps. Some original 13th century buildings, have survived the ravages of time, but many of the impressive facades are Victorian copies. The Rows, with its double-decker architectural design, are unique in the world. The earliest written records of the Rows date back to the 11th and 12th centuries, but it’s possible they actually existed in some form for many centuries before that. Most probably they may have been built on top of rubble remaining from the ruins of Roman buildings. Still their origin is subject to speculation. Undercrofts were constructed beneath the buildings in the Rows. The undercrofts were in stone while most of the buildings in the Rows were in timber.

Marktplatz (Market square) in Heppenheim during blue hour with the town hall (l) and half-timbered houses. The town hall (Rathaus) was built in 1561. After the city fire of 1693 the baroque half-timbered Rathaus was rebuilt in 1705/06.

St. Peter’s Church in Melverley is situated on the banks of the River Vyrnwy. The church was rebuilt in 1406 to replace the wooden chapel, which was burnt down during the Welsh uprisings in 1401. All that remains of the old building is the Saxon font, which is still used for baptisms today. It features also a Jacobean pulpit and a lectum (1727) with a chained bible. The current timber-framed, wattle and daub, black and white church is one of only three such churches to be found in Shropshire and one of twenty-seven in England and the oldest of its kind. There is not one nail in the building.

Most of the timber framed houses in Shrewsbury are dating back to the 15th and 16th century and were erected in the ‘golden years’ of wool trade in the city. Abbot’s House in Butcher Row in the centre of town is one of the oldest timber framed houses in Shrewsbury. The house was built in 1459 by the Abbot of Lilleshall as an investment for his abbey. The windows at the bottom of were all separate butchers' shops, used until the mid-1800s; on the floors were tenements.

Neubrandenburg - founded in the year of 1248 - is famous for its medieval heritage of Brick Gothic. The city centre itself exists of harsh GDR architecture. One of the main features of Neubrandenburg is it largely intact medieval city wall. The wall has a perimeter of 2,3 km and is 7 m high. The four Brick Gothic city gates see PiP’s), dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries, gave the city its nick name "Stadt der Vier Tore" (City of Four Gates). Wedged into the stone wall are the 27 half-timbered houses that remain of the original 56 sentry posts. When firearms rendered such defences obsolete in the 16th century, the guardhouses were converted into so called “Wiekhäuser”; homes for the poor, disadvantaged and elderly. Most of the surviving homes have been rebuilt and are now craft shops, galleries and cafes.

The Lord Leycester Hospital has never been a medical establishment. The word hospital is used in its ancient sens, meaning ‘a charitable institution for the housing and maintenance of the needy, infirm or aged’. In 1571 Robert Duydley, Earl of Leicester, founded a retirement home for disabled soldiers and their wives. His ‘hospital’ was set up in buildings which were already more than 150 years old, when it was the home of Warwick’s medieval guilds. The hospital, now a self-supporting charity, continues to provide a home for ‘the Brethen’, as they are still known. They make together with their wives a key contribution to ensuring that this architectural gem is accessible for visitors.

Limburg - developed around a castle from the late 7th century - was first mentioned in documents in the year of 910 as "Lintpurc", when the St. George monastery was founded by Konrad Kurzbold. The town became stone ramparts in the 12th and following centuries. The construction of a new church belonging to St. George monastery started in 1200. Around that time a new castle was built south of the new church. The plague ravaged Limburg in 1344. The town then underwent a steady decline until the early 19th century, when the rise of the Duchy of Nassau (1806-1866) gave a new lease of life to Limburg. In 1827, Limburg became the seat of a diocese and in 1886 it was made district capital. Limburg's old town offers a maze of cobble stoned streets, lined with crooked half-timbered houses some dating back to the 13th century, but most of them are ‘just’ from the 17th or 18th century. The St. George Cathedral is Limburg’s landmark, situated on a little hill, is one of the best examples of late Romanesque architecture in Germany. The church was built between 1200 and 1235, it was elevated to the rank of cathedral in 1827. I took this picture from a parking garage in the city centre with the former town hall in the foreground and the St. Georg Cathedral above the old town in the background.