Thale [antikvár]

The town of Thaie, which lies on the northern edge of the Harz at the entrance to the Bode Valley, is one of the tourist centres often visited in the county of Halle. Thale, surrounded by extensive beech and spruce woods and sights like the Hexentanzplatz (Witches' Dancing Ground), the Rosstrappe and the Harz Mountain Theatre, is a popular place for excursions for countless guests and visitors resting and relaxing in this part of the North Harz with its charming scenery.Thale, which was only granted the status of a town in 1922, was first mentioned in the year 820. Potters and other craftsmen settled here in the shelter of the monastery Wendhusen, which was founded in the 9th century and is considered to be the oldest monastery in the Harz region. Numerous archaeological finds - above all agricultural implements and potters' wares with the marks of band ceramics - bear witness to the settlements, which in the 11th century was called "Dorp to dem Dale", or village in the vale. The centre of the monastic settlement lay in lower Thale, in what istoday Wendhusen Street, where a well has provided an inexhaustible supply of water since ancient times. The oldest remaining buildings of the town are grouped around this "Wei-berborn" (Women's Well), which has been decorated since 1951 with two original fountain figures. Among these buildings is the dwelling tower (the Wendhusen tower) which dates from the 9th to 10th century and has beenplaced under a preservation order, as well as the Andreas Church which was built up in the middle of the 16th century and altered from 1788 to 1790. In 1984, during the open-ing-up of the residential complex, archaeological finds were stumbled on at the "Schankeplatz" (or Tavern Square, the former site of the community's alehouse, the "Black Eagle") which indicate that the area around theformer monastery was already settled during the time when the Harz forests were still impenetrable thickets.The development of crafts and industry in the Harz town of Thale was determined to a considerable extent by the deposits of ore and the abundance of wood. Small wood forges, melting and foundry facilities along the course of the River Bode have been known of from the middle of the 15th century onwards in the neighbourhood of Thale and in the town itself too, in which ore from the Tiefenbach Valley was processed. In 1686 the Elector of Brandenburg granted the bailiff, Johann Christoph Wichmannshausen permission to run a tool and nail forges. Out of this hammer mill, the Iron and Metallurgical Works "of Thale developed through the extension of the production facilities between the 17th and 19th centuries. The first black sheet-iron and tinplate were produced in these works around 1800 and the records show that the first iron carriage axle in Germany was forged here in 1831. With the emergence