Bryggen Guide: Wooden Alleys, Schøtstuene and Hanseatic History

Stretching along the eastern shore of Vågen harbour, the 62 timber buildings of Bryggen ("The Wharf") have been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1979. From around 1360 to 1754, this quarter served as the Det Tyske Kontor, one of the four major foreign trading enclaves of the German Hanseatic League. Every summer, wooden sailing ships called jekter arrived from northern Norway and Lofoten stacked high with air-dried cod (stockfish, tørrfisk), which the Hanseatic merchants traded for grain, salt, beer and cloth from across Europe. Although a great city fire in 1702 burned the wharf to the ground, the timber rows were immediately rebuilt on their exact 12th-century foundations using traditional unpegged log construction.

Stepping behind the facade into the wooden passages (Ganger)

Many visitors walk along the pavement in front of the waterfront restaurants and think they have seen Bryggen. The real magic begins when you duck under one of the narrow dark entryways between the gables (such as behind Jacobsfjorden, Bellgården, Enhjørningsgården or Svensgården) into the quiet, creaking interior passages:

• Log foundations and overhanging pulley lofts: notice how the plank walkways tilt and undulate as they rest on centuries-old timber cribs sunk into the harbour mud, while high overhead project wooden winch houses (vippebommer) used to hoist bales of dried fish into the storage lofts.
• Working artisan studios: in the back courtyards where tourists rarely linger, local ceramists, goldsmiths, textile weavers, bookbinders and leatherworkers run small open workshops.
• Why there were no chimneys: because a single spark could destroy the entire stockfish supply of Northern Europe, heating and open flames (even candles) were strictly forbidden inside the Bryggen warehouses; merchants worked through freezing winters in heavy wool and fur coats.

Schøtstuene, Bryggens Museum and the Theta Room

Because the historic 1704 timber Finnegården building of the Hanseatic Museum on the front quay is undergoing a long-term foundation restoration, Hanseatic history is presented just behind St Mary's Church at Schøtstuene (The Hanseatic Assembly Rooms). Built safely away from the warehouses so fires could be lit, these preserved wooden banqueting and courtroom halls show how the celibate German merchants and apprentices ate, studied and held winter assemblies. Next door, Bryggens Museum displays 12th-century medieval wooden foundations and hundreds of everyday runic inscriptions carved on sticks (runepinner) excavated after a 1955 fire, while tiny clandestine Theta Museum in Enhjørningsgården reveals a hidden World War II resistance radio room discovered by Nazi soldiers in 1942.