This used to be a butcher's store where the ox head was perfectly at home. Yet that stone is not originally from here but from the former meat hall in Grote Staat 3. One fine day coming
from the museum it was reinstated and on the corbel above the ox with a new and unjustified name: IN THE GOLDEN OX HEAD.
The head is now fitted with plastic horns. These used to be real horns,but they turned out to be rather sensitive to the weather, so the ox regularly lost one, resulting in a new 'hairdo' every time.
The former Meat hall in a drawing by Philip van Gulpen from ca 1840. This is what that facade used to look like from 1666 onwards, and it was richly decorated.
The ox head is the only part that was reused in the new facade there after it had collapsed and had been rebuilt in 1856.
Photo of the Grote Staat at the beginning of the 20th century when the building had long been used as a storage place for fire engines. The sign on the facade reads: Fire Brigade.
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