Station: [3] The mortar pit

Should the sun shine down on Horst a little too long for once, this provisional wooden roof does a good job. It prevents the mortar pit from drying out. This is where the fired limestone is delivered and processed further. The lime is broken up and water is added, it is slaked in technical parlance. Adding sand to the mixture turns it into mortar, which is urgently needed on the building site, either for seams, so the bricklayers can assemble their bricks, or for plaster to go on the facade. And even the mortar pit’s remains do good, if unintentional, service. They are durable enough for archaeologists to discover and be able to reconstruct this place centuries later.”