Jelenia Góra Town Trail · the short route

The Castle Tower

It stands on ul. Jasna and looks like a leftover nobody remembered. The truth is the opposite: this is the one part of the Castle Gate that survived, because somebody spoke up for it. In 1836 the town offered the tower for sale with demolition in mind, and the residents had a whip-round to save it. In Prussian Silesia at the time that was an isolated case – which is why this tower means more than it looks.

The gate that is no longer there

Jelenia Góra had three gates: the Castle Gate to the west, the Wojanowska Gate to the east and the Long Street Gate to the south. The Castle Gate stood on the road towards the castle on what is now Wzgórze Krzywoustego – hence the name. From it two streets ran to the market square, which says something about the traffic that passed this way.

The gate has been gone for nearly two hundred years. The tower remains – the one that carried the bell announcing the hour when the town gates closed.

A fire, three masons and a date on the weathervane

In 1549 a great fire consumed almost all of Jelenia Góra; within three hours it had taken everything inside the walls. The tower burned too. A year later, during repairs, the structure collapsed and killed three masons. The new tower went up only in 1584 – and that is the date on the metal weathervane at the top, together with a stag, the town’s heraldic animal.

It is worth looking up at it. That is not decoration added for tourists but a signature under the rebuilding, put there by people who remembered what the rebuilding had cost – though the vane itself may have been replaced since, because the whole crown of the tower was changed in 1836.

How the tower is built

The lower part is cylindrical, 7.57 metres across at ground level, with walls over a metre and a half thick. Inside there are five floors. On the third and fourth you can see cross-shaped arrowslits, adapted, according to the city’s own materials, for firing small cannon rather than hand weapons alone.

The upper, octagonal part is a nineteenth-century addition, put on in 1836 together with the viewing terrace. The tower is therefore Renaissance below and neo-Gothic above – worth knowing before you stand underneath and crane your neck.

Like more than one tower in this system, it also served as a prison, beside its role as a powder and weapons store. In a medieval town that was normal: a defensive building stood empty most of the time, so a use was found for it.

1833: the vault goes. 1836: the town tries to sell the tower

From the late eighteenth century the walls were being dismantled piece by piece – they had lost their military value and were in the way of the town’s growth. In 1833 the vault of the gate was demolished and the passage widened at the same time.

Three years later it was the turn of the rest. The gate building and the tower were put up for sale, with demolition planned on grounds of poor condition. And then something happened that was essentially not done in Prussian Silesia at the time: the residents protested and organised a collection.

The reason they spoke up is recorded precisely. The tower was regarded as an ornament of the town and an important part of its skyline from the north-west – particularly in the view from today’s Wzgórze Krzywoustego and from the so-called Golden View. What they were defending was not a monument in our sense, but the panorama of their own town.

It ended with the removal of the damaged crown, which was in danger of collapse. In its place came neo-Gothic battlements around a viewing terrace, and the cupola gave way to a roof. That was also when an entrance was cut at street level – until then you went in from the crown of the wall, roughly at first-floor height.

Why this matters more than it looks

The historians of the Historical Atlas of Polish Towns call the episode an isolated case, in the Prussian Silesia of the day, of effective action by lovers of the relics of the past and a foretaste of the emerging heritage conservation movement.

In other words, this is not a story about a tower. It is a story about the moment when it first occurred to the inhabitants of a middling town that an old building might be worth money precisely because it is old.

That the impulse was not obvious can be seen from the tower’s neighbour. The Long Street Gate was pulled down the following year, in 1837, on the same pretext of poor condition. Nobody stood up for it and no trace of it remains.

Even when the town finally obtained permission in 1862 to demolish the walls entirely, the permission required two towers to be kept: the Wojanowska and the Castle Gate. The collection of a quarter of a century earlier had changed what counted as obvious.

Three generations as the best viewpoint in town

From 1836 the rescued tower had a new job, and it held it for seventy-five years – until 1911, when a new viewing tower with a wider panorama of the Karkonosze went up on Wzgórze Krzywoustego. It could not compete, and never could: it stands in the middle of the town, among the roofs.

Which is exactly why it is worth climbing today. From Wzgórze Krzywoustego you see the mountains; from here you see the town close up – roofs, chimneys, church towers. Two different views, not two versions of the same one.

What to know before you go up

Entry is free. The tower opens seasonally: shorter hours in winter, longest in summer – usually ten to four between November and March, and until seven in high season. The hours change, so it is worth checking first; the city publishes a telephone number for this site.

Inside there are steep stairs and five floors – this is not a place for a pushchair, or for anyone who dislikes heights.

The tower was thoroughly renovated in 2010–2011: the plaster was stripped back to the stone, a second entrance with an openwork stair structure was added, along with a viewing platform. That was also when a tactile panorama of Jelenia Góra for blind and partially sighted visitors was installed at the top – something no guidebook mentions.

What else is nearby

The tower stands at the western edge of the old town, a few minutes from the market square. The route to Wzgórze Krzywoustego runs the same way – to the tower that took its visitors away in 1911. Walking the other way, along the line of the former walls, brings you to the second surviving gate tower, the Wojanowska.

Frequently asked questions

Can you climb the Castle Gate Tower? Yes, and entry is free. It opens seasonally – until four in winter, until seven in summer. The hours do change, so check before your visit.

How old is the tower? The present one was built in 1584, after its predecessor burned in the town fire of 1549 and collapsed during repairs a year later. The octagonal upper storey, the battlements and the terrace are nineteenth-century, from the rebuilding of 1836.

Is it a listed monument? Yes, though not separately: it forms part of the town walls complex, listed under number A/4953/614 by a decision of 28 August 1959.

What happened to the gate itself? The vault was demolished in 1833 to widen the passage. Three years later the gate building was earmarked for demolition. Of the whole structure only the tower is left.

Who saved the tower? The residents. In 1836, when the town put it up for sale, a protest and an organised collection kept it standing. Only the damaged crown was taken down.

Why is there a stag on the tower? The stag is the heraldic animal of Jelenia Góra. The metal weathervane bearing it, with the date 1584, commemorates the completion of the rebuilding.

Can you see the Karkonosze from the tower? You can, but over the rooftops – which is what cost it its visitors in 1911, when the tower on Wzgórze Krzywoustego took over the panorama. From the Castle Gate you mostly look at the old town.

What was the tower used for apart from defence? For watching and for punishment: it carried the bell that announced the closing of the gates, and the interior served at times as the town prison.