Market Square in Tarnowskie Góry

The Market Square in Tarnowskie Góry is considered one of the finest town squares in Upper Silesia. It is an irregular trapezium 108 m long – the gwarkowie, the town's ore miners, built their houses next to mine shafts rather than along a planned grid. The square is dominated by the Neo-Renaissance town hall of 1898 and the Lutheran Church of the Saviour, and its frontages keep 16th-century arcaded houses.

History: a town built on mine shafts

The present square took shape in the second half of the 16th century; before that the main square was today's Plac Gwarków. In 1548 it was extended eastwards. It was home to the Mining Office, the court, the Bytom district office and the town council, and the richest mining entrepreneurs built their houses around it. Two shafts on the square were turned into town wells – one was recreated in the 1950s as a wooden windlass with a shingled roof, and a stretch of 19th-century cobbles has been kept around it.

What to see

• Town hall (Rynek 4), built in 1896–1898 to designs by the Berlin architect Hermann Guth and opened on 11 October 1898. Faced with red clinker brick, granite and sandstone, it draws on the Northern Renaissance. During construction the spire of its tower, rising almost 40 m above the square, burned down. The façade bears coats of arms including those of the Henckel von Donnersmarck family, Prussia and the town, and a niche holds a miner figure by Edmund Halke of Piekary Śląskie, which in the 1950s replaced the statue of the town's founder, Margrave George of Brandenburg-Ansbach.
• Sedlaczek House (Rynek 1) from the 16th century – tradition says it hosted John III Sobieski, Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III. From 1748 to 1818 it was the seat of the Bytom district governors, and in the early 19th century Johann Sedlaczek opened a wine bar here that still operates. Since 1958 it has housed the Tarnowskie Góry Museum, with exhibitions on the town's history and on John III Sobieski.
• Arcaded houses at numbers 17 and 18 from the 16th century, plus several other listed 16th- and 17th-century townhouses, including the Cochler House and the House under the Lindens.
• Lutheran Church of the Saviour (Rynek 12) from the 18th century, remodelled in the early 20th century. Its Lutheran parish is the oldest in Upper Silesia.
• Miner sculpture from 2015 by the arcades at the end of Przesmyk Street, and a monument to the lump of ore said to have been found by the peasant Rybka in the 15th century.

Did you know?

In 1923 three "liberty oaks" were planted around the cross commemorating the town's founding, in memory of the three Silesian Uprisings. They were cut down during a later renovation of the square.

Tripto tips

Walk the square slowly, looking under the arcades and into the courtyards – it takes about an hour, or two with the museum in Sedlaczek House. In summer beer gardens open on the square. Tarnowskie Góry is a mining town, so combine the square with the underground route of the Historic Silver Mine or the Black Trout Adit.