Historic Cities · Germany
Rungholt through the ages
Rungholt was a low-lying settlement in North Frisia, in what was then the Danish Duchy of Schleswig. The area today lies in Germany. Rungholt was flooded, with massive erosion, when a storm tide hit the coast on 15 or 16 January 1362.
Rungholt in 1361
Before the Grote Mandrenke
Rungholt is a prosperous marshland trading town on the island of Strand in the Duchy of Schleswig, at the height of its dyke-built agriculture and sea-borne commerce. The walk passes the outer sea dyke and wooden sluices, the small sielhafen with Hamburg beer and Flemish cloth, rows of grass-sod houses on warfts, the large parish church and the reclaimed fields grazed by cattle.
Rungholt sits low on the horizon as a scatter of grassy warfts and turf roofs punctuated by a substantial brick church tower; most houses are built of grass sods, low and earthbound, while wooden piers, raised store platforms and a broad turf-faced dyke edge the tidal flats. The harbour works are timber and oak, sluices large and clumsily patched, and the general palette is peat-brown, wet green and the dull red of brick under a northern, wind-flattened light.
The route: 9 streets, squares and views
View from the Wadden Sea → Outer Dyke and Sluice → Sielhafen Harbour → Quay and Storehouses → Market Warft → Main Church Warft → Cloth Row and Weavers → Dyke-top Reclaimed Fen → High Warft Overlook
Step inside, 5 interiors
Reeve's Sod Hall · Oak Cask Storehouse · Weighhouse Hall · Nave of the Apse · Upper Textile Loft
Planned from the Wikipedia record: Rungholt.
