In this sloping street to the harbour, called the 'Blaauwe Steen', you can admire two former guild houses at house numbers 3 and 5. One (from 1587) belonged to the bag carriers' guild and the other (from 1554) from the beer carriers' guild. In these guild houses with ancient cellars, the guild brothers played dice to determine who could load or unload the ships.
What were things like then?
The Stone as a dice table.
From around 1650 the guilds of dock workers (beer and bag carriers) used the stone as a dice table. After a call across the harbor that there is work ("Companions, coming!"), the street fills up with porters. They divide the loading and unloading of ships and farm carts by playing dice. Each time they write their cast eyes on the stone with a piece of chalk.
There is a symbolic remnant of the 'Blue Stone' in the street. For centuries, there has been a large flat stone of blue bluestone on a rise here.
Where is the original stone? In 1830, the Blauwe Steen disappeared from the street scene. In pieces it ends up as a foundation for a public toilet behind the Manhuis at Zusterstraat 11.
To say in a few poetic sentences:
The Stone Speaks:
Unfortunately what a gruesome fate,
What suffering happened to me
I old stone from Goes
Be taken away suddenly.