Nysa Town Walls

Nysa, the seat of the Bishops of Wrocław, was enclosed for five centuries by a ring of brick walls with four gates and 28 towers. In the 19th century the walls were demolished to link the cramped centre with new districts. Two gate towers remain, now standing alone among the streets: the brick Ziębice Tower with its stone lion and the white Wrocław Tower with its lace-like parapet. Each tells a different part of the town's story.

History: Bishop Przecław's walls

Around 1350, under Bishop Przecław of Pogorzela, the New Town was surrounded by walls with towers, an outer bailey and a moat. Gates led in four directions: the Wrocław Gate to the north-east, the Ziębice Gate to the north-west, the Friars' Gate to the south-west and the Customs Gate to the south. Drawbridges led into the town. A mention of the space between walls in 1414 shows that there was also an outer wall. In 1428 the defences saved Nysa from the Hussites, who captured many other Silesian towns at the time.

In the 16th century, under the Ottoman threat, the walls were modernised, and they were still being repaired in the early 18th century – even though the town was already ringed by modern bastion fortifications. They were demolished in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Ziębice Tower

The four-storey Gothic tower of 1350 is built of brick with darker clinker bricks laid in a decorative pattern. The square holes in the walls are traces of scaffolding beams from the time of construction. The narrower top storey has a crenellated gallery with keyhole loopholes. Originally the tower could only be entered from the wall-walk, at second-floor level – the bricked-up doorway and the stone corbels of the former walkway are still visible.

Above today's ground-floor entrance, a Renaissance stone lion, probably carved in the second half of the 16th century, was set in place in 1922. Tradition says it was booty from a raid by Nysa's burghers on Ziębice in 1489.

Wrocław Tower

The white, 33-metre tower also dates from the mid-14th century. It was once topped by a masonry spire, destroyed by the Swedes in 1642 during the Thirty Years' War. Around 1600 it received a Mannerist parapet with artillery loopholes, ornate gables and corner turrets. In the early 20th century an entrance was cut at ground level and fitted with a decorative portal from the "Pod Patrycjuszem" (Patrician) house that once stood on the market square. The tower also served as a prison. A short stretch of the town wall survives next to it.

Tripto tip

Both towers stand near the former ring of walls, on ul. Wrocławska and ul. Bolesława Krzywoustego, a short walk from the market square. The Ziębice Tower is sometimes opened seasonally as a viewpoint over the town – check times at the Nysa tourist information centre. An hour is enough to see both from outside, walk included; combine them with the early modern Nysa Fortress, whose bastions ringed the town while the medieval walls were still standing.