The Hanseatic League was a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and their market towns. Growing from a few North German towns in the late 1100s, the league came to dominate Baltic maritime trade for three centuries. The golden age left many beautiful buildings to the Northern Germany, most of them representing Brick Gothic style.
One of the most picturesque places in Rostock is the Neuer Markt (New Market Square), with the Town Hall - that was originally built in the 13th century in Brick Gothic style, but extensively transformed in the 18th century, with the addition of a Baroque façade and a banqueting hall. The square also preserved six original, carefully restored gable houses from the 15th and 16th centuries. The other historical houses in Hanseatic style that once bordered the square were destroyed in an Allied air-raid in 1942, and rebuilt in a simplified manner.
The first written record of church in Danmark locality date back to the year 1291. Close to the church are several stones with a Christian text and cross inscribed. The oldest parts of the present red-brick church are from the 1300s. In the late 1400s the church was enlarged to the appearance it has today. The church has been modified both internally and externally several times, among other things after the fires in 1699 and 1889. There are lot of well-preserved mural paintings in the walls.