In 2001, a Jewish ritual bath, a mikvah, was discovered by chance in the basement of a house in Trendelburg. In 1808 this house belonged to the Jewish Dannenberg family. In 1868 there was a big fire in the city, so that the house burned down to the foundations. The new house was then simply built on the rubble of the old house, so that the basement was forgotten. During a thorough renovation in 2001, access to this basement room was discovered and the ritual bath was uncovered.
Since cleaning was never allowed to be done with standing water, the ritual bath was fed with running water from the Diemel, which is much deeper. The Trendelburger Wasserkunst, a screw conveyor, conveyed the water to the city's fountain. From here the Jewish community had a tributary to the mikveh.
The vaulted cellar can always be visited during the opening hours of the tourist information. This is open from Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and on Thursdays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Between May and October you are also allowed in on weekends from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The vaulted cellar is quite dark. Theoretically, there is light here by means of real candles, but they were not lit when I visited. Exploration can only be done with your own flashlight (or smartphone). The ceiling height is quite low, so that one usually bends over here, including avoiding cobwebs and the full basement program. 😉
The mikveh consists of two basement rooms. So it's more of a short visit, but the lady from the tourist information office provides some additional information and is open to all questions. If you walk past here, you should take a look inside. The adventurous exploration with a flashlight is simply interesting.