Poznań city walls

The walls surrounding the medieval city were built around 1280, in place of the wooden and earth fortifications erected immediately after the location. The perimeter of the fortifications had a shape similar to a circle. The length of the walls was approximately 1,700 m, and the area surrounded by them was approximately 21 ha. The wall was built of ceramic bricks with lime mortar in the Wendish arrangement and placed on a stone foundation. Its thickness was 1-1.2 m. It was topped with a battlement, under which - from the inside - there was a wooden porch for the defenders. The height of the wall was up to 11 m. The wall was reinforced with approximately 35 towers, spaced every 35-45 m around the perimeter. Their number and spacing placed 14th-century Poznań among the most strongly fortified Polish cities. The rectangular towers were one storey higher than the wall and open to the interior of the city. However, already in the first half In the 15th century, they began to be rebuilt, closing them from the inside. The towers had their own names. those of them that were assigned to the care of individual craft guilds bore their names (e.g. Tailor's, Butcher's, etc.). There were also names from other users (e.g. the tower of the Dominican fathers). Four gates led to the city: Wroniecka - from the north, Wielka and Wodna - from the east and Wrocław - from the south. Next to the gates, there were several pedestrian gates, carved into the walls, mostly in the 15th and 16th centuries. #poland #poznan #walls