Hammerbrücke

The Hammerbrücke spans the Freiberger Mulde river roughly two kilometres east of Freiberg's old town and ranks among the oldest surviving stone bridges in Saxony. Built in 1576 as a pointed-arch stone structure on the medieval long-distance road linking Chemnitz, Freiberg, and Dresden — known as the Frankenstrasse — it stands ten metres above the water with a span of 13.80 metres. By the 1920s its 7.30-metre carriageway was too narrow for modern traffic, and a replacement road bridge was built 200 metres upstream in 1928. The original bridge has since been closed to motor vehicles and is now a protected Kulturdenkmal (heritage monument), accessible only on foot or by bicycle. Its coursed rubble masonry and characteristic pointed arches remain largely intact, offering a tangible remnant of a Renaissance-era trade route through the Saxon ore-mining region.