Historical market place of Bernkastel-Kues

In 1291, Bernkastel was granted town privileges at the instigation of Archbishop Boemund I of Trier. It is believed that the first town hall in Bernkastel was built at this time, on the site where it still stands today. The current facade of the town hall is a magnificent work of the German Late Renaissance by the Trier sculptor R.H. Hoffmann (built in 1608). Hoffmann's mentor and patron was Archbishop Lothar von Metternich (1599–1623), whose coat of arms and the Electorate of Trier's cross, alongside the Bernkastel town coat of arms, still adorn the town hall's oriel window. The oriel rests on a basalt column and, on its Baroque curved roof, supports a stone figure of Salvator Mundi, the Savior of the World, holding the globe.

On the left corner pillar of the facade on the ground floor there is still a pillory today, where the evildoers were (are) chained to the public pillars of abuse with chains and handcuffs.