Prudnik Market Square

Prudnik's rectangular market square was laid out using the "Flemish rope", a medieval unit of measurement – which is why the square covers exactly one morgen (an old land measure). In the middle stands the town hall with a 63-metre tower, and three corners hold Baroque monuments: a Marian column from 1694, the oldest fountain in Opole Silesia from 1696 and a statue of St John of Nepomuk from 1733. It is the natural starting point for exploring one of the oldest towns in the region, chartered under Magdeburg law in 1279.

History: fires, kings and a time capsule

The square is first named in documents in 1481. The first, wooden town hall was burned by the Swedes in 1627, and its successor was damaged by fires in 1650, 1653, 1735 and 1779. The last one broke out on 28 February 1779 after Austrian artillery fire during the War of the Bavarian Succession – almost the entire town burned, and there was no water to fight the flames because it had not rained for two months. The present town hall, designed by the architect Thomas of Świdnica, was completed in October 1782 with money from Frederick II of Prussia; a marble plaque above the tower door recalls this. Six years later King Frederick William II stayed overnight in the town hall, and a ball was held in his honour.

In 1840–1842 the town hall was raised by one and a half storeys, and in 1856 the tower gained another level. An air raid in March 1945 destroyed the north side of the square and most of the buildings in its centre, and in the late 1950s and early 1960s many old houses were pulled down; new buildings went up in 1959–1963. The town hall survived. In 2000 a soldered capsule was taken out of the ball on top of the spire, containing documents from 1842, coins, a newspaper and a piece of bird bone – the original went to the Prudnik Regional Museum, and a copy and a new capsule went back up the tower.

What to see

• The Marian column (north-west corner) – funded through the will of town notary Piotr Ortman in memory of the victims of the 1625 plague, designed by Johann Melchior Österreich after the column on Marienplatz in Munich; made of sandstone and marble, with medallions of saints on the base.
• The Habsburg Fountain (north-east corner) – in a sandstone basin, atlantes carry a shell, and a crowned double-headed eagle crowns the whole.
• The statue of St John of Nepomuk (south-east corner) – with chronograms and inscriptions praying for the town's protection.
• The Weidinger House of 1769 (Rynek 2), one of the listed historic houses on the square.

Did you know?

• In December 1756 a Polish nobleman, Mateusz Kutkowski, was hanged on the square for desertion.
• In late May or early June 1945 a group of Czechs hung a Czechoslovak flag on the town hall and announced that the town was joining Czechoslovakia; Polish soldiers chased them away without firing a shot.
• In 2004 the town hall received an award in the National Heritage Board of Poland's "Well-Kept Monument" competition.

Tripto tip

The square is open at all hours, and a walk around all four sides and the monuments takes about half an hour. The town hall is not the mayor's office – it houses the registry office and the office of the Praděd Euroregion, among others. Afterwards, walk to the Wok Tower, a former castle tower named after Wok of Rosenberg, regarded as the town's founder.