The Seat of Justice (so-called Portau’sches Haus). Photograph taken in 1920
This photograph was taken around 1920. On it you can see the east view of the former Seat of Justice. No. 7 in the Bürgerei is a so-called Traufenhaus, with its eaves facing the road. It was built in 1659, when it became the administrative seat and Seat of Justice for the Altes Land. It exemplifies how there was self-administration in the region at such an early date and was where the regional High Court and Assembly sat. Later the building had other uses, including (in 1733) being used by a haulier named Portau, after whom the house was later named. This ornamental brickwork is only found in Jork and is evidence not only of how well-off the region was, but also of its trade connections with the Netherlands.
In 1929 there were plans to pull the house down, as the Bürgerei was too narrow to be used as a through road. As luck would have it, a businessman from Hamburg bought it, even under resistance by the locals. In 1932 he had the house gutted and all the bricks extracted, so the wooden framework could be moved back three metres – on rollers – towards the canal that was there at the time. The brickwork was professionally re-set and a saying carved in the woodwork over the main entrance: “I praise craftsmanship – It moved me here – Not to everyone’s approval – but now I’m standing still”.
It was a technical masterstroke at the time. Today, the people of Jork are proud of this historic monument and its unique history.
After World War II there was a branch of the Schleswig-Holsteinische Westbank in the left part of the ground floor. In the right part, there was a hairdresser’s, which in 1954 became a wool and drapery shop, with a dry-cleaning agency.
Apart from the commercially used spaces, there were also apartments for a solicitor and his wife and for another family with four children on the ground floor. Three more families lived on the first floor and another two under the roof. Nowadays the building houses the public library.
