At the northern end of the old town lies the Enkerei farm, an area which, according to its name, must originally have been the location of the executioner's shop of the Stolberg underlordship. Historical documents clearly prove a spelling with H. The executioner's shop must be understood primarily as the place where corporal punishment was carried out, where the condemned were publicly subjected to the measures of torture.
It is unknown how the change from the executioner's shop to the copper yard took place. The first mention of the Enkerei as a copper yard is in 1607, when it became the property of the Becks, a family of copper masters from Aachen. Peter Beck was the grandson of an Aachen mint master and thus descended from a wealthy and respected patrician family that invested in Stolberg.
Through the Becks' heirs, the estate passed in the 18th century to members of the Peltzer family, who developed parts of the estate into the "Sonnenthal" copper farm next door. Today, the farm has been partly demolished, heavily altered and is no longer recognisable as such...
Discover these and other sights on a walk through the old town on our copper vein. The flyer "The Copper Vein" leads you through the romantic alleys of the old town to the most important buildings and places!