New Town Market Square in Toruń

The New Town Market Square (Rynek Nowomiejski) is the heart of what was once a second, completely separate Toruń. It was laid out when the New Town received its charter in 1264, and although it lies just a few minutes from the Old Town Market Square, it feels much calmer: a Gothic parish church of St James in one corner, a neo-Romanesque church by Schinkel in the middle, and houses that were once inns where, tradition says, kings stopped by.

History: a town next to a town

For almost two centuries Toruń consisted of two separate towns – the merchants' Old Town and the more artisan New Town. They were only merged in 1454. The square is almost exactly square, about 95 × 95 m, with two streets running off each corner at right angles. From the early 14th century the New Town Hall stood in the centre, housing the council chamber, the lay court, cloth halls and bread stalls; its Gothic cellars held a tavern and a jail. After the merger the building lost its role, and from 1668 the Lutherans used it as Holy Trinity Church. The houses around the square were more modest than those of the Old Town, and fires in 1413 and 1455, plus the wars with the Teutonic Knights, the Swedes and Napoleon, mean that most of what you see today dates from later remodelling, much of it 19th-century. All sides of the square have been listed monuments since 1961, and it is part of Toruń's UNESCO World Heritage old town.

What to see

• St James's Church in the eastern corner – the New Town's former parish church. The foundation stone was laid in 1309, and the distinctive double roof on the tower was added after the fire of 1455. Since 2021 it has been a shrine and a stop on the Way of St James.
• The former Protestant church in the middle of the square – a neo-Romanesque building designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, completed in 1824 on the site of the town hall. Protestants worshipped here until 1918, it served as an Orthodox church from 1927 to 1939, and today it belongs to the Tumult Foundation.
• "Pod Modrym Fartuchem" (The Blue Apron) inn – by tradition a craftsmen's inn founded in 1489 and famous for its wine and beer; legend has it that Kings Casimir IV Jagiellon and John I Albert visited. Today it is a café in an 18th-century Baroque house.
• "Pod Złotym Lwem" (Golden Lion) Pharmacy (no. 13) – a large corner house, Gothic at its core, with a Neoclassical façade from the first half of the 19th century.
• The Masons' Inn – the former inn of the masons' guild, home since 1964 to a children's art gallery and studio.
• House no. 23 – the former house of St George's parish, with a Renaissance-style façade and a cartouche dated 1887, the year of an earlier restoration.

Interesting facts

It was near St James's Church that the events of 1724 known as the Tumult of Thorn began – a clash between Catholics and Protestants. For a long time there were also meat stalls on the square, and in the 16th century a New Town Wedding House was built here.

Tripto tip

The square is open around the clock and free of charge; it is a pedestrian zone with greenery and benches. 30–40 minutes is enough to walk around it and look into St James's Church. From the Old Town Market Square it is a short walk along Szeroka Street. When the Old Town is packed, this is where you will find a free café table and an uncrowded photo. Traffic is restricted in the old town, so leave your car in one of the paid car parks around it. The ruins of the Teutonic castle and Philadelphia Boulevard on the Vistula are close by.