Old towns & squares

Old Market Square in Poznań

A square with sides of 141 m, laid out around 1253 — the third largest market square in Poland, after Kraków and Wrocław. At its centre stands the Renaissance town hall, and on its little tower the billy goats emerge every day at 12:00 noon, butting horns at each stroke of the clock. Around them: merchant townhouses, the old weigh house and the Bamberka fountain.

The town hall and the 1551 mechanism

The Gothic town hall was built at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, and after the great city fire of 1536 it was rebuilt in Renaissance style by Jan Baptysta Quadro (1550–1560). The clock with its "jester's device" — two goats butting heads before each hour strikes — was commissioned from locksmith Bartłomiej Wolff and has worked since 1551. Legend says a kitchen boy stole two goats for a feast; they escaped onto the tower and started butting each other, to the voivode's great amusement. Lightning destroyed the tower in 1675; the modern goats returned in 1913 and the mechanism was replaced in 1954.

Rebuilt from ruins in 15 years

In 1945 about 60% of the square's buildings were destroyed — only 20 of 100 survived untouched. Reconstruction, modelled on the 18th-century appearance, followed Zbigniew Zieliński's plan and in the 1950s reached a pace of about 30 townhouses a year. The town hall has housed the Museum of the History of Poznań since 1954.

How to visit

Arrive a few minutes before noon for the goats — they are best seen from the town hall arcades facing the weigh house. The middle of the square holds the cloth-hall buildings (domki budnicze) and fountains: the baroque Proserpina of 1766 plus modern reconstructions of Apollo, Neptune and Mars. The square takes an hour or two, but start with a coffee under the arcades before the school groups arrive.