Building research: Hauptstraße 8 - The oldest house in Burtscheid?

Until the Second World War, the steep main street in Burtscheid had a development that had grown over hundreds of years and would probably make a picturesque postcard motif today. Unfortunately, only a handful of buildings survived the destruction of the war in the area of Adlerberg, Kaltbachgässchen and Dammstraße. The most striking of these is the listed building at Hauptstraße 8, which still conveys an impression of the historical building style thanks to its protruding upper floor, the quarrystone and brick walls and the baroque first floor windows with their arched arches. During a recent re-examination by the Lower Monument Authority of the City of Aachen, samples were taken from the almost completely preserved wooden beams and roof construction and analyzed in the laboratory of the University of Bamberg. This made it possible to clarify the previously only assumed construction date of "around 1545": It turned out that the majority of the timbers had already been felled in the winter of 1529/30. There is scientific evidence that the beams were installed without long drying phases, meaning that the house was most likely largely completed in 1530. This makes it one of the oldest surviving buildings in Aachen. For Burtscheid itself, the monument preservation findings are a minor sensation, as the building is probably the oldest surviving residential building in the historically grown district.

Scientific investigations by the monument preservation authorities confirm: This house on the main street in Burtscheid is almost 500 years old - and therefore probably the oldest residential building in the district.