Scharhörnbake
The Scharhörnbake was the most important daymark (a tall landmark used for navigation) on the German North Sea coast for centuries. It was built in 1661 by the City of Hamburg on the Scharhörn sandbank near the Elbe estuary to help ships find their way into the Elbe from the North Sea.
It was rebuilt over the years and stood for 318 years until it was taken down in 1979. The structure included a room and served as a refuge beacon for shipwreck survivors from 1840 to 1965. Today, only the boulder stone foundation near Nigehörn remains. At 29.10 meters (95 feet 6 inches) tall, it was the highest daymark on the North Sea coast from 1898 until 1914.
The Scharhörnbake was often destroyed by storms and was sometimes removed during wartime to make navigation harder for enemy ships. Its main job was to help ships pass around the Scharhörn Reef into the Elbe. Hamburg depended on such sea marks and maintained routes around the reefs starting in 1440.
From the sea, the Scharhörnbake was a key landmark for finding the Great Tower Neuwerk. The need for the daymark, and for Neuwerk as an old sea tower, shows how important the Elbe estuary was to Hamburg.
The building changed over time. It began as a wooden structure with a pyramid and a square. By the mid-19th century it appeared as two diamonds stacked on top of each other, earning the name “Scharhörn Bake.” The refuge room was added around 1840, but once the sandbank grew into an island and new shacks appeared from 1929, the refuge function became unnecessary.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 16:10 (CET).