#1 +#2 City Hall, City Hall Square and Roland

You are standing here on the west side of one of the most important and oldest buildings in the city of Oebisfelde and begin your walk along our well-signposted “Altstadtrundweg”.

The town hall was built with the planned layout of the city with streets, church, castle and city wall at the beginning of the 13th century.

This building is probably the 2nd town hall in the history of municipal self-government. It was completed in this form in 1506 as a late Gothic building on the probably already existing cellar.

The fact that there must have been a town hall beforehand results from the fact that a mayor was named as early as 1333.

It has been formally proven that four annual fairs have been held here since 1523. As early as 1226, however, our city was referred to as “Civitas”.

The last major structural change took place in 1892. The former Ratskeller (the north or the main entrance, left part of the building) was given a joint portal with the town hall.

Essential parts of the building, such as a gothic fluted central column in the former council room, windows and window frames, basement and parts of the outer and load-bearing inner walls, and a particularly valuable bell in the clock tower still bear witness to this today.

Even the roof structure still shows today that every house in the city was used to dry flax for centuries. It was spun and woven into highly praised linen on a large scale, far beyond our own needs, for centuries. Small, 8 cm long wooden piles were drilled into the rafters at a distance of approx. 5 cm. Lines were stretched to these and the flax hung up to dry.

The bell in the clock tower was created by Hinrik van Kampen at the beginning of the 16th century. He had also cast bells for several cathedrals and churches. He also made cannons for palaces and castles with artistic inscriptions.

The medieval tower clock was restored in 2001 by members of the Heimatverein and is now in the castle and local history museum.

In 1892, the Roland statue was erected on a cantilever stone that had been on the front of the town hall from time immemorial as a symbol of municipal self-government and the freedom of the citizens. However, since a predecessor in the Middle Ages has not yet been proven, one cannot assume a „real“ Roland. Nevertheless, Oebisfelde is a member of the Rolandstädte network.

The current Roland is made of sandstone and was rebuilt in 1989, on the occasion of the 975th anniversary of the city, by a Magdeburg monument company based on the optical model of the old figure.

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