Bremen Schnoor Quarter: History Behind Our Magnet
Strichwerke
Bremen Schnoor Quarter: History Behind Our Magnet
Cover photo: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Bremen Schnoor quarter is the oldest part of the city that still stands much as it was built. It sits in the medieval centre, in the angle between the Weser and the line of the old city wall, and it is the only part of the medieval centre that has kept a medieval character. It is a few minutes on foot from the Marktplatz, and what you find there is a knot of lanes too narrow for cars, lined with houses that lean into one another over the paving.
In short: the Schnoor is Bremen's oldest surviving quarter, a fishermen's district that probably dates from the tenth century and kept its medieval lanes. Its name comes from the rope-making once done here, its oldest secular buildings are from around 1400, and it was saved from demolition by a conservation statute of 3 February 1959 before becoming a protected historic district in 1973.
Where the Bremen Schnoor quarter sits, and why it was the poor side
In Hanseatic Bremen the Schnoor was one of the poorer parts. Rich merchants settled on the Obernstraße and the Langenstraße, which ran along the Balge, the city's first harbour. The Schnoor grew instead as a district of fishermen, probably from the tenth century, on a small island between the Weser and the Balge. It enters the written record in the thirteenth century. The inhabitants built thatched cottages there, and because the ground was low the quarter was liable to flooding for its first centuries. The first ferry service in Bremen ran from here, and the first bridge across the Weser was built around 1240. The city wall that once enclosed the quarter is thirteenth century, and parts of it still stand at the eastern edge near the Marterburg.
The Balge mattered more than any other feature. It was a side arm of the Weser that ran directly in front of the quarter and tied it into the water network, so the people who lived here were river fishermen, boatmen and craftsmen rather than merchants. The channel silted up over the centuries, was canalised in 1608 and filled in 1838, which is why the street grid today reads as a place that once faced water it no longer touches.
In the thirteenth century Franciscan friars settled on the edge of the quarter, and their monastery church survives. The present St John's is a brick Gothic hall church from the fourteenth century, built without a tower and topped instead by a small roof turret.
What the name Schnoor actually means
Schnoor is Low German for string or rope. The lanes between the houses were named after the trades that worked in them, and the quarter takes its name from the rope and cable makers who worked in one of them. The neighbouring lane, Lange Wieren, comes from the same habit: Wiere is Low German for wire, and wire and anchor chains were made there. There is a second reading, that the little houses stand as close together as beads on a string. Both are worth knowing, because the street names are the clearest surviving record of what the quarter did for a living.
| Street or name | Low German | What was there |
|---|---|---|
| Schnoor | Snoor, "string" | Rope and cable making |
| Lange Wieren | Wiere, "wire" | Wire and anchor chains |
| Stavendamm | Stave, "stube" | The first public bathhouse |
| Wüstestätte | "deserted place" | Left unbuilt for long after a 1659 fire |
The houses, and the two oldest
The oldest secular buildings in the Schnoor date from the very start of the fifteenth century: the Brasilhaus at Schnoor 15, whose vaults date from 1402, and the packing house at Schnoor 2, from 1401. The surviving building stock runs from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. Many of the houses from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are still largely in their original condition, which is why the quarter gives such a direct impression of how people lived in the Baroque period. Some buildings are later reconstructions, and some reuse facades that once stood elsewhere, so the Schnoor is best read as a preserved streetscape rather than a museum of untouched houses.
What makes the place feel the way it does is the size of the plots. A house in the Schnoor stands on roughly fifty-five to sixty square metres of ground, enough for one narrow building and nothing more, while a single residential plot in Bremen's outer districts can still exceed a thousand square metres. That difference is the whole architecture of the quarter: small, tight, and built to fit the ground.
The Schnoor's lanes are cobbled and too narrow for cars, which is part of how the houses survived. Photo: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
How the quarter was almost demolished
The narrow lanes were of no use to motor traffic, and by the early twentieth century the Schnoor had become a poor people's quarter. Poverty had one unintended effect: nobody could afford to renovate, so the old houses were left standing. The quarter came through the Second World War largely undamaged, which meant its owners had to pay a burden-sharing levy after 1945 rather than claim war damage, and by the mid-1950s many of the houses were in a poor state. Through the 1950s new residents arrived, among them students and artists drawn by the cheap rents.
The city then tried to clear the quarter. Of the 120 houses in the Schnoor, all but seven were still standing when the city, looking for building land for banks and insurance companies, pushed for demolition of the historic streets. The Senate wanted to restore the quarter under the Schnoor statute; the powerful SPD figure Richard Boljahn and his architects wanted high-rise blocks with open ground instead, and had that won, the last winding alleys of the old town would have gone. The heritage conservator Rudolf Stein and many residents fought the plan, and it was defeated. Bremen had already passed a statute on 3 February 1959, concerning the conservation of the Schnoor quarter and the surroundings of St John's Church, that required every alteration and new building to fit its neighbours in scale and material. Restoration followed under the conservator Karl Dillschneider, across around a hundred houses, and salvaged historic building parts, mostly from the old town, were reused. In 1973 the Schnoor became a historic district under the state monument authority, and a 1981 land-use plan capped the number of licensed restaurant sites at fourteen so that living and working could coexist.
A painted portal on a Schnoor house, of the kind that survived because nobody could afford to renovate. The quarter's building stock runs from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. Photo: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Bremen Schnoor quarter magnet
Bremen – Schnoor is one of three Bremen designs we make, alongside the Town Hall and the Town Musicians. It is a magnet of 5 by 7 centimetres, printed on recycled kraft paper over bookbinder greyboard and finished by hand in our workshop. The price on the product page is 7.00 EUR at the time of writing; check the page for the live figure.
The drawing is a view along the lane rather than a single facade. It shows gabled houses leaning over the cobbles, a projecting bay window on the right, hanging shop signs, potted plants at the doors and the paving curving out of sight. That is the shape the Schnoor actually has. There is no one grand building to draw here, so the subject is the street itself.
Bremen – Schnoor. Illustration: Strichwerke.
The exact product is Bremen – Schnoor, and the full city set is the Bremen collection.
The other two magnets in the Bremen set
Bremen – Town Hall. Illustration: Strichwerke.
Bremen – Town Musicians. Illustration: Strichwerke.
All three share the same format: 5 by 7 centimetres, kraft paper over greyboard, drawn as line work and finished by hand.
What the quarter is today, and where to buy our magnets in Bremen
The Schnoor now holds craft workshops, galleries, cafes, restaurants, antique shops and small museums, among them the Bremer Geschichtenhaus in the old St James packing house. The state heritage authority treats the quarter as an ensemble of 111 objects, surveyed building by building between 2007 and 2009 and recorded in its Denkmaldatenbank. We list only the retail partners we can verify. In Bremen that is three:
- Sieben-Faulen-Laden, Böttcherstraße 9 - siebenfaulenladen.de
- SCHÖNS GEDÖNS, Bauernstraße 4, 28203 Bremen - dasviertel.de
- Glücksmoment, Borgfelder Heerstraße 42B - gluecksmoment-bremen.de
Stock moves between shops and opening hours change, so it is worth asking ahead before a journey. We do not keep a live availability list.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Schnoor in Bremen?
The Schnoor is the oldest surviving quarter of Bremen's medieval centre, and the only part of it that has kept a medieval character. It is a compact group of narrow lanes, on the ground between the Weser and the line of the old city wall, and today it holds small craft workshops, galleries, cafes, restaurants and shops. It is a protected historic district.
How old is the Schnoor?
The quarter began as a fishermen's district, probably in the tenth century, and it is first mentioned in writing in the thirteenth century. Its oldest secular buildings survive from the early fifteenth century, many of its houses are from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the church of St John's dates from the fourteenth century.
Why is it called the Schnoor?
Schnoor is Low German for string or rope. The lanes were named after the trades that worked in them, and the quarter is named after the rope and cable makers who once worked in one of the lanes. The nearby Lange Wieren is named in the same way for the wire and anchor chains made there.
Was the Schnoor ever in danger of being demolished?
Yes. In the 1950s, with the houses in poor condition and the city looking for building land for banks and insurance companies, demolition was pushed forward as a serious option. A conservation statute passed on 3 February 1959, and opposition from the conservator Rudolf Stein and many residents stopped it. The quarter became a historic district in 1973.
Our reason for drawing it
The Schnoor sits in our Bremen collection beside the Town Hall and the Town Musicians, and it is the plainest of the three subjects. Its value is in the street plan and the size of the plots, not in a single grand facade, so the drawing follows the lane and keeps what you actually see walking through: the gables, the bay window, the signs, the pots at the doors and the cobbles. We draw each subject as line work and print it on recycled kraft paper over bookbinder greyboard, so the place arrives as a small, precise object rather than a photograph. The Bremen set is at Bremen Fridge Magnets.
Sources
- Schnoor - Wikipedia (English): the medieval character, the fishermen's origins and thatched cottages, the first ferry and the bridge of around 1240, the slight wartime damage and the burden-sharing levy, the 1959 Senate decision and the 1973 listing.
- Schnoor - Wikipedia (German): the first written mention in the thirteenth century, the Balge's canalisation in 1608 and filling in 1838, the Brasilhaus vaults of 1402 and the packing house of 1401, the plot sizes, the statute of 3 February 1959, the restoration under Karl Dillschneider, the 1981 plan for fourteen restaurant sites and the Bremer Geschichtenhaus.
- St. Johann (Bremen) - Wikipedia (German): St John's as a fourteenth-century brick Gothic hall church without a tower, with a roof turret.
- Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Bremen - history of heritage conservation: the Bremen heritage authority and its records of the quarter.
- Erfassung des Schnoor - Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Bremen: the 2007 to 2009 building survey of the 111 objects in the Schnoor ensemble and the chronological building history produced for each one.
- Denkmaldatenbank Bremen - Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Bremen: the public heritage database holding the survey records for around 1,600 cultural monuments in the state of Bremen.
- Kampfplatz Schnoor - Digitales Heimatmuseum Bremen: the demolition fight of the 1950s, the Senate's restoration plan under the Schnoor statute and Richard Boljahn's rival high-rise scheme.
- Bremer Geschichtenhaus - exhibition: the walk-through museum in the Schnoor quarter.
- Schnoor photo by Dietmar Rabich, 2021: the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence and credit for the first photograph in this article.
- Second Schnoor photo by Dietmar Rabich, 2021: the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence and credit for the second photograph in this article.