The Stone House
Station 3
An outstanding example of late medieval secular architecture can be found embedded in this building complex: the so-called Stone House. An exceptionally large number of structural elements from the time of its construction around 1250 have survived, including the doorways to the two main floors, the west facade, the eastern stepped gable and the roof timbers. The roof was demonstrably covered with straw.
Unique in Europe is the preserved interior of the upper floor room, featuring a pointed-arch light niche with a smoke vent, exterior walls with incised joints that have remained virtually unchanged, and a colour-painted timber-beamed ceiling, the beams of which could be dated to 1247. Like a time capsule, the interior of a private residential and commercial space has been preserved here. Before 1293, the house was owned by the Jewish woman Riche, but the plot had probably been inhabited by Jews for much longer.
The Stone House, together with the Old Synagogue and the Mikveh, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023.
