St Anne's Hill, Nowa Ruda

St Anne's Hill rises within the town limits of Nowa Ruda, and on its summit stands a stone lookout tower from 1911, one of the first modernist towers in the Sudetes. A short way below is a Baroque pilgrimage church with a hermit's house and a former mountain hostel from 1903. From the tower terrace you can see the whole town and the ranges around the Kłodzko Valley.

History: pilgrims, hermits and hikers

As early as the 15th century a wooden chapel of St Anne stood below the summit, giving its name to the hill and a small settlement. In 1644 a stone pilgrimage chapel was built and extended in 1662–1665. From 1665 a folk festival of the hill's patron saint was held here until 1917, and hermits settled by the church – fifteen in all. In 1812 King Frederick William III of Prussia visited the hill.

Around 1900 pilgrimage and tourism came together. On the initiative of Carl Ferche a hostel was built in 1903, and in 1911 the Nowa Ruda section of the Kłodzko Mountain Society built the tower to a design by Heinrich Wolf of Berlin. It opened on 29 October 1911.

What to see

• The lookout tower of red sandstone at 647 metres. From its terrace you can see Nowa Ruda and the Owl and Table Mountains.
• St Anne's Church – a Baroque building on an elongated octagonal plan with a porch and a hermit's house at the back. Inside is a wooden figure of St Anne with the Virgin and Child from 1495 and furnishings mostly from the 18th century.
• The hostel building of 1903.
• Three plague chapels by the western road to the summit, built after the epidemic of 1680.

Did you know?

From 1962 the tower carried a radio and TV transmitter and was closed to visitors. Local people campaigned for years to get it back. Renovation finished in 2014 – the stairs, walls and terrace were repaired and 14 columns and the roof were reconstructed – and the tower reopened on 5 October 2014.

Tripto tip

Waymarked trails lead to the summit from the centre of Nowa Ruda and from Sarny; from the centre it is about a kilometre and a half uphill. In summer the church is a busy place of worship, especially around St Anne's feast on 26 July. A town trail links this tower with the one on All Saints' Hill – together they make a pleasant half-day outing.