Station: [5] The carpenter

“With the first works being carried out in 1554, the first carpenters also arrive in Horst. Sources tell us how difficult it is to find these popular craftsmen. Their hometowns are located outside the Ruhr in any case. Rutger is at least able to provide the material they need himself – from his own woods. The carpenters use this wood primarily to erect half-timbered walls, ceilings and roofs. This is hard physical work, which is incidentally why assistants are hired at an older age than in other crafts.

The carpenters’ most important job on the building site is constructing the roof trusses. These are not assembled at dizzying heights, but rather on firm ground – a test of sorts, to see if all pieces fit. Only once this is the case, do the carpenters dismantle the trusses, move individual parts onto the building and reassemble them into their original shape. Then the topping out ceremony may commence – an old custom, that even today we owe to carpenters’ tradition.”