Outbuilding from Frankenbach

Built: 1848 
Dismantled: 1976
Reassembled: 1977/78

This small night watchman’s house was among the living quarters provided by pre-industrial village communities to their officers. In smaller rural communities, the offices of herdsman and night watchman were often held by one and the same person. Hessenpark Open Air Museum has included this unadorned utilitarian building to represent the living conditions of the poor rural population between 1850 and 1900.

On the ground floor there is a stable for small livestock, and on the upper floor there is the night watchman’s apartment, which he could access via an inside ladder. Today, visitors can reach it by a wooden staircase added in the museum. A dovecot was installed under the roof. At its original location, the small two-storey timber-framed house was part of a three-sided farmstead and periodically served as the quarter of the local assistant constable. Its site on the boundary of the ensemble corresponds to the social status of its former inhabitants, who were usually not full citizens and greatly dependent on the local authorities.