Alte Seilerei

Visits for groups by appointment via the tourist office of the town of Rüthen as part of guided tours of the town. Many centuries ago, the manufacture of ropes was one of the numerous extra-industrial trades and crafts of a self-sufficient economic system in the town of Rüthen. For example, local rope-making businesses (reepschleger or reepdreger) can be found in the town's civic lists and treasury registers from 1648 and 1759, and

in the 19th century Rüthen trade and business statistics, the rope-making trade is documented with 6 businesses in 1848, 3 in 1885 and 2 in 1900. The last remaining ropery ceased operations in 1937 due to increasing mechanization, the spread of industrially produced ropes and the unstoppable dominance of chains and steel ropes. This ropery mainly manufactured products for agricultural use, such as sheaf bands, cattle halters, horse and plow ropes, band ropes for hay and grain carts, hauling ropes of various lengths and thicknesses, etc., but also occasionally ship ropes, fishing nets, bell ropes and always a large number of twines and clotheslines for general household use. All rope-making products were made from hemp, most of which was supplied in bale form from Russia

, but before the ropes, cords and lines were given their desired shape in length and diameter, long threads first had to be spun from the raw hemp after the hackling and combing stages. In the subsequent production process, the individual threads were then twisted into cords (twisting), which were then shaped into the desired end product as required in multiple thread paths by further precisely coordinated twisting processes using rope harnesses and carriages. In this way, the hemp threads were turned into a cord, the cords into a rope, and the ropes into the correspondingly strong rope: work processes that demanded a great deal of physical strength and special manual dexterity from the rope makers in the time before electrification.