City gates and towers

Dovecote Tower

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.

Monstrance Tower

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.

Cat’s head tower

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.

Bridge Gate

The well- preserved Bridge Gate was built in 1432 on the site of an earlier structure which had served the same purpose. Initially, it was called the Crossing Gate or Ferry Gate as it stood on the route which led to the Vistula ferry crossing point.

Its present name is derived from the first bridge across the Vistula in Toruń, which was built in 1500. Although its wooden structure was frequently damaged during the spring thaws and various wars, it served the city and the visitors until the second half of the 19th century when a railway bridge, which is still used today, was built.

The Bridge Gate was the most technologically advanced of all the medieval Gates guarding the city from the side of the river. Its rounded walls mitigated the impact of artillery fire and the specially designed loopholes allowed for the use of cannons for the defense of the city. The gate was also the lowest point of the defensive walls of Toruń therefore it was used for marking the level of water in the Vistula river during the highest floods. Although the city was not threatened by flooding as it was situated on an elevation, the water at times reached the Bridge Gate as was the case in the 16th century. Today the information about the record river levels can be seen on the metal plaques mounted on the gate.

On the other side of the Vistula one can clearly see the lush green of the river islet called the Market Grove (Kępa Bazarowa). It was on that island that the First Peace Treaty of Toruń was signed in 1411, which ended the war between Poland, Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights Order. It was also to that island that the harlots from Toruń were banished in a display that served both as a warning and entertainment. The sinful women, clad in straw garlands were seated on donkeys, facing the beasts’ rear, and driven, with the use of a hangman’s whip, onto the island, which has since been referred to as the “Monkey Grove”. Today, the site on the river bank where the old wooden bridge used to stand serves as a viewing point. The panorama of the Toruń Old Town that can be admired from there was voted in 2007 one of the seven wonders of Poland.

The Convent Gate

The Convent Gate, also called the Holy Spirit Gate, was erected in the 14th century as one of four gates leading into Toruń from the Vistula River port. Despite slight modifications, the gate has been preserved in its original form of a gothic gate tower with three ogival recesses.

The outer recess housed a wooden portcullis dropped in the time of siege. The space over the middle recess was hollow and the city defenders dropped heave objects and poured boiling-hot liquids. They used primarily boiled gruel which kept the heat well and mercilessly scalded the attackers. Hence the name of the opening through which the gruel was dropped which was known as kaszownik (gruel hole). The third recess sheltered a wooden door, additionally reinforced with metal elements, which used to be closed at dusk and opened at dawn.

The name of the gate is derived from the Bernardine Convent of the Holy Spirit which used to stand by the riverside and was destroyed during the Swedish invasion in mid-17th century. According to an old legend, a kind-hearted young nun called Katarzynka (Katherine) who once lived there in the time of a terrible starvation, found barrels full of gingerbread dough in the convent’s vaults. The gingerbread baked from the dough saved the lives of thousands of Toruń townsfolk and brought fame and recognition to the nun as Katarzynki, the most famous Toruń delicacy in the shape of six joined circles, was named after her.

The site of the former convent is currently occupied by the tall building of old Prussian barracks dating back to the first half of the 19th century. In the Interwar period it housed the first Polish Naval Academy. The Academy and Toruń’s connections to sea are commemorated today by an impressive anchor situated on the boulevard between the Convent Gate and the Vistula river. The road bridge that can be seen from here, named after Marshal Joseph Piłsudski, was opened in 1934. It was assembeled from the elements of a dismantled Prussian bridge which previously spanned Vistula near the town of Kwidzyn. Its bowstring girder structure looks particularly impressive at night when illuminated.

The Sailors’ Gate

The Sailors’ Gate was built in the Middle Ages but its present appearance is a result of a major 19th-century reconstruction. Straddling the street that led to the port quay and St. Johns’ parish church and the Old Town market square, the gate was the most important entrance to the city.

It was here that Polish kings were ceremoniously greeted to the accompaniment of the great Tuba Dei bell. The mayors of Toruń handed the keys to the city gates to the sovereigns and invited them to stay at the royal chambers in the Town Hall. Owing to that tradition, the Żeglarska street (Sailors’ street) used to be called the Royal Route. It was the widest street in the entire Old Town. The earliest sources suggest that the first brick houses in Toruń were raised along that street as early as in the first half of the 13th century. Today, the street is still lined with numerous historical burgher’s houses that used to be occupied by eminent burghers and noblemen.

The vicinity of the Sailors’ Gate are the only place within the city walls from which one can see the 15th-century clock mounted on the belfry of St. Johns’ cathedral. Its painted and gilded tin face serves as background for the clock hand shaped like a human hand whose two fingers for centuries have been showing the passing hours. The clock is commonly referred to as a “raftsmen’s clock” as it was placed on the tower so that it would serve the sailors, raftsmen and other people going about their business in the busy riverside port which was situated just behind the Sailors’ Gate.

In medieval Toruń the riverside quay was frequently visited even by sea-faring ships belonging to local and foreign merchants trading in copper, cloth, grain, salt, and forest products. Various merchandise, loaded with the use of a crane which used to stand by the river, were transported further on to the distant Flanders, England, northern Germany, and Sweden. The importance of the port in Toruń decreased as early as 15th century with the changes in trading routs and the increasing role of Gdańsk, but Toruń remained an important stopover place for the raftsmen going down the river. As recently as one hundred years ago, their rafts still stopped at the embankment and a large timber port was built for their needs a few kilometers down the river. Since the trading port was closed down after the end of the Second World War, the only ships that are moored here nowadays are tourist boats.