If you’re searching for the Altes Schützenhaus, look for a large, dark timbered building with distinctive high gabled roofs and old wooden supports, almost like a noble’s grand countryside house nestled amidst the trees-just ahead of you on the square.
Now, let me whisk you back a few hundred years, to when this very spot echoed with laughter, the clink of mugs, and-if you listened closely-the unmistakable twang of arrows and the heavy thump of musket fire. This was the heart of Bern’s shooting society, the legendary Altes Schützenhaus! Though the original building long ago succumbed to time and city expansion-vanishing in 1862-it once stood here like a proud old guardian, looking down on all who passed.
Step into the shoes of a Bernese townsfolk from the 1600s. The city had just started growing past its third wall. Right here on Kleeplatz stood the third incarnation of Bern’s own hall of sharpshooters, built from sturdy wood by master builder Andres in 1622. But history goes back even further-a full century before, the first Schützenhaus perched not far away, under the watchful eye of the city’s newly established shooting field, known as Schützenmatte. Wealthy Bernese like Lienhard Tremp and Jakob Schwytzer donated generously; the city even paid for the roof. And if you peered inside, you’d be greeted by a grand wooden structure resting on tall stilts, its ground floor packed with bustling kitchens and cool, shadowed storerooms, a shooting porch stretching out beside it. Up a sturdy exterior staircase, the grand festival hall practically echoed with singing, boasting, and the scent of roasted meats.
Above, the steep cripple-hipped roof bristled with helmet poles, making the house look quite the noble’s summer estate, while right outside, the ornate Kreuzgassbrunnen glimmered in the sun-its bear banner waving almost as if to cheer on the next round of competition.
Of course, this wasn’t just a haunt for locals. Picture a line of foreign dignitaries, all eager to outshoot their hosts or, at the very least, to outdrink them! One year, Christoph of the Palatinate won a fine pair of trousers at a shooting contest, gifting, in exchange, a genuine sable fur cloak. In 1639, no less than the French ambassador sent 800 silver Kreuzdicken to craft a bejeweled Dauphin goblet for the society’s toasts-although, in true Bernese fashion, the city council only remembered to actually make the cups two years later, when a new ambassador generously kicked in another hundred Louis d’or for an even fancier Anjou goblet. Bureaucracy, it seems, is older than the hills!
But the fun wasn’t endless. After the French invasion in 1798, the echoes of feasting were replaced by the groans of wounded soldiers, as the Schützenhaus was transformed into a military hospital. By the 1850s, with the railway flattening meadows and hearts heavy with nostalgia, the grand old house was dismantled. Yet, the thrill of the marksmen, the clang of the Schützenglocklein bell one can almost still hear (decorated with proud bears and marching musketeers), and tales of lost treasures like the vanished stone plaque declaring “God is the strongest over me”-they linger in the air, waiting for someone curious to discover their echo.
So as you stand on this historic ground, take a moment to imagine not just cricketing leaves and old stone, but a riot of competing marksmen, cheers, banter, and perhaps, if you listen hard, the faint ring of Bern’s most famous little bell. Because in Bern, even the marksmen’s houses have stories worth aiming for!
