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and gingerbread...
The most beautiful monuments of Toruń presented by Benon Frąckowski, the leader of tourist guides from Toruń
It is a medieval city tower, which owes its name to its substantial vertical deviation (1.40 m). It was built in the XIV century as a vertical, 15 meter tower merged into the system of town walls and placed on four-wall foundations, but the wall from the side of the town was not fully erected. A gallery for the guards connecting the tower to the town walls ran through openings in side walls and the lack of the internal wall allowed for easier hoisting of ammunition. As early as in the Middle Ages a layer of sand slid from the ground on which the tower was erected, which caused the leaning of the tower until it settled on compacted soil. In XVIII century the tower ceased to play a defensive role. The back was built to its full height, the ceilings were levelled and the building became a prison for women. In XIX century it was rebuilt and functioned as a smithy and a gunsmith’s lodgings. In the second half of the XX century, it became solely an apartment building. Then the gothic hip roof was replaced by a new shed roof. In 1960s the tower hosted several cultural societies and nowadays its interiors contain a pub and a souvenir shop. The tower is now one of the most characteristic sites in the Old Town.
Teutonic Knights Castle was the first castle to be built in the Lands of Chełmno. The knights chose an elevated site by the Vistula River where they localised the castle which had a semicircular shape. Archaeological excavations carried out in the years 1958-66 showed that in the X century a fort existed on the site. After the translocation of the town, in 1233-36, construction work on the castle was started. At first it was probably a wooden structure, later replaced by stone-brick buildings. During XIII and XIV centuries, the Commander Castle was erected. The southern wing with a chapel, refectory, dormitory and kitchen was built in first place. The chapter house, a massive octagonal tower, a well, a sanitary tower called "Gdanisko" and other remaining household buildings followed. After the Battle of Grunwald (1410) the outer walls were fortified and the castle was adapted to contain a larger garrison. In 1420 a fire broke out in the castle and citizens of Toruń did not help the knights to put it out. It was an omen of future end to the rule of “lords in white cloaks with black crosses”. On 4 February a general upraising starts and citizens of Toruń besiege the castle to conquer it in four days. On the order of the town Council, the Toruń Castle was destroyed by townsmen. Presently, only parts of the moat and lower parts of the main castle remain of the building, together with the "Gdanisko" tower that is preserved in good condition. The castle is nowadays a place of amusement and recreation for the citizens of Toruń.
Originally called the Transit gate or the Ferry gate. It owes its name to the crossing on the Vistula River by which it was situated. The current name comes after the permanent bridge built in the years 1497-1500 by Piotr Postill from Budziszyn. For a long time, the bridge in Toruń remained a second bridge on the Vistula River, after the bridge in Kraków. The gate was built in 1432 by Hans Gotland (the builder of the tower by the old town church). It is unique among towers, as it has a battlement and rounded shape for protection from artillery fire. Apart from defensive functions, it was used mainly for transport and control purposes. Metal plates which mark the highest level of water in the Vistula River from the XVI to the XIX century are still mounted on the gate.
One of the eight gates which guarded the entrance to the Old Town in the Middle Ages. It was erected in the first half of XIV century, and new storeys were added in early XV century, due to the development of firearms. It owes its name to the benedictine monastery with a hospital and the Holy Spirit church which stood by the gate outside town walls till the XVII century. That is why the gate is also called the Holy Spirit gate. It is a broad gate of the Flanders type with a retractable grate placed in a pointed arch niche, behind which an orifice called a “gruel hole” is situated. The opening was used to attack the storming enemy, who managed to break through the grate. Behind the “gruel hole” the main gate was placed. The massive gate wings could be strengthened from the inside of the town with beams inserted into special holders mounted to the side walls. In XIX century, after rebuilding and elevating, the gate became an apartment building. One of the Toruń Old Town gates facing the Vistula River bank, closes a street of the same name. It was built in mid XIV century and looked like other riverside gates. However, numerous changes to its shape left only few original elements present to this day. It finally lost its defensive value after the city was conquered by the Swedes in 1703 during the northern war. A prison was localised in the gate in XVIII century. In XIX century new storeys were added and the gate became an apartment building.
One of many towers that are preserved to temporary times in the town walls from the Vistula River Side, it is called “Dovecote" and was built in the Middle Ages. It was named after pigeon-houses for mail pigeons, which were placed there in XIX century for messenger pigeons used by Prussian garrison for exchanging information among fortified cities.
In the Podmurna street several granaries and, in number 14/16, an octagonal tower called “monstrance” are preserved. The tower was built in XV century as a part of Old Town walls to provide protection from the side of the destroyed Teutonic Knights Castle that allowed easy access for a potential enemy. Nowadays, the tower is utilized for numerous purposes, including artistic workshops. Constructed in XV century. It was probably built from materials brought from the Teutonic Knights Castle, destroyed by townsmen in 1454. It was a summer residence of the Brotherhood of st. George, whose members were the rich patricians of Toruń. It is a gothic building with slender peaks and numerous blind windows and pinnacles. The present building is composed of a former castle “Sentry tower" from XIII century, to which a square turret with a hip pavilion roof was added in late XIX century, and of the already mentioned Citizens Court from XV century. The complex used to be utilized as a school dormitory and recently returned to its original gothic form. Nowadays, a Centre for Cooperation between Twin Cities of Toruń is localised in the Court. The origins of the round tower, called the “Cat’s head”, located in the northern part of the town walls (today it is the end of Podmurna street) go deep into early Middle Ages. In XVI century it was enlarged and adapted for a greater number of cannons to become a powerful artillery post. Its dungeons were used as prison cells. During the northern war (1703), the tower was partially destroyed, then rebuilt in the beginning of the XX century, when an additional storey was built. According to a local tale, a part of northern fortifications was dedicated to commemorate heroic bravery of a cat which took part in defending Toruń from Swedish invasion in 1629. Thus, there were Cat’s paws (4 towers), a Cat’s head tower, a Cat’s tail and a great Chełmno Barbican called the Cat’s Belly. Only the second of these buildings survived to the present. Nowadays, the tower is the seat of the Institute of the Polish Language in Nicolaus Copernicus University.
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