The Fischerstraße, which crossed the Harzstraße at this point, was during the reign of the last Catholic Duke Heinrich d. J. (1514 - 1568) the eastern moat of the then called Liebfrauenstadt settlement before the dam festival.
The stone bridge that led the Harzstraße through a city canal, the Bruch or Langen Graben, before the First World War was only about three meters wide and arched over a Schwibbogen in the Amsterdam style. As late as 1723, a wooden bridge made of transverse planks stood here. The flank walls of the baroque canal of circa 1750 still run beneath the Fischerstraße. Beyond it in an easterly direction was the Armeleuteviertel - demolished in the 1930s and 1970s, with a foul smelling tannery basin on the southern edge.
The Harzstraße was, despite the lack of eastern degrees until well into the 19th century in addition to the Kanzlerstrasse the most distinguished street Wolfenbüttel. At the western end stood the former von Dehnsche Haus, in the middle the Samson School and synagogue of the Jewish community.