Deichstrasse

Deichstrasse is Hamburg's oldest surviving residential street, lining a former canal in the old town near the harbour. Its narrow row of gabled merchant houses, some dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, preserves the appearance of the historic Hanseatic city that was largely lost elsewhere. The Great Fire of 1842, which destroyed much of central Hamburg, is said to have broken out on this street. The rear facades drop straight to the water of the Nikolaifleet canal, where goods were once hoisted into the upper storeys.