In "Tanners’ Alley", some 20 historic houses which survived the war offer an impression of the former appearance of many old town streets. For the most part, they are characteristic craftsmen’s dwellings, narrow (often not more than two windows wide) and half-timbered. In fact, this neighborhood was inhabited by so-called "white tanners" who tawed skins with alum to produce supple, light-colored leather for fashionable clothing. The skins were soaked in masonry vats in the basement, thrashed ("bated") with a tanner’s bat, dressed with a curved scraping knife and dried on racks on the nearby city wall. A tanner’s bat and knife are depicted on house 24.