Szlak JelonkówJelenia Góra Town Trail · the short route
Grodzka Tower
Most of the walls of Jelenia Góra were pulled down because they were in the way. This tower survived because somebody moved into it. First flats were made in it, then a house was built onto it, until it stopped being a piece of fortification and became an address: ul. Grodzka 16. Today you can spend the night in it.
One of several dozen
In the fifteenth century the inner wall of Jelenia Góra was strengthened by several dozen towers. The Historical Atlas counts thirty-six, other studies give twenty-odd, and the Grodzka Tower itself says thirty-eight on its own website – nobody has settled it. Why they stood so close together is explained on the page about the town walls.
Of the whole system there remain: the Grodzka Tower, the Castle Gate Tower, the Wojanowska Tower and Gate with the bastion housing St Anne’s Chapel, and fragments of wall woven into later houses, most visible on ul. Jelenia. The rest went for building material after the town obtained permission to demolish in 1862 – with the proviso that the two gate towers were to stay.
The whole group has a single entry in the heritage register: A/4953/614, by a decision of 28 August 1959.
It survived by ceasing to be a tower
This is the opposite case to its neighbour on ul. Jasna, which had to be saved by a collection. Nobody fought for the Grodzka Tower. It simply stopped being a fortification in good time.
Flats were made in it by the eighteenth century at the latest – some sources put it in the seventeenth – and it then passed into private hands. A timber-framed building was added to the stone cylinder and let into the tower, and that is how it looks today: half tower, half house.
So when the time for demolition came, there was nothing to demolish. What stood there was not a wall but somebody’s house, with an address, windows and tenants.
The postmaster, the doctor and the merchants
The flats in the tower were not emergency housing for the poor – quite the reverse. They were occupied by merchants, the postmaster and the town physician, people from the front rank of local society.
That is worth pausing on, because it says something about the town. An address in a former tower was prestigious: right by the wall, a few dozen paces from the market square, in a place that had until recently been military. Much as one lives today in a converted factory or a water tower.
A portal that came here from another house
Above the entrance is a Baroque portal with the date 1679 carved into it. It did not belong to this building – it was moved here from a house that was demolished on the same street. Beside the doorway three further Baroque details are set into the wall, also from houses that no longer exist.
That is the most interesting thing about the whole elevation. This building is assembled from the remains of its neighbours. It did not survive intact; it accumulated, piece by piece, out of what was left over from successive demolitions.
The date 1679 is therefore genuine, but it does not tell you when the tower was built. It tells you when somebody else’s house was built, the house of which only the portal remains.
A house of arts, and a magazine office
After 1945 the tower was turned into municipal flats. From the 1970s the building went over to culture: it housed the House of Creative Associations, the offices of the monthly “Karkonosze”, and later the Tourist and Cultural Information Centre. Before 2021 it held a stained-glass workshop and a small restaurant.
That list is effectively a summary of the post-war history of a listed building in a Polish town centre: flats, an institution, tourist information, catering. Each period put into these walls whatever it happened to need.
Today: a bed inside the town walls
Since 2021 the Grodzka Tower has been a guesthouse. You can stay the night – which makes it one of the few places on the trail where the monument is not for looking at but for using.
For a passer-by that means the interior is open to guests, not to visitors. There is enough to see from outside anyway: the portal, the details set into the wall, and the shape of the building itself, in which you can see where the tower ends and the house begins.
What else is nearby
The tower stands on ul. Grodzka, a few dozen paces from the market square, towards Wzgórze Krzywoustego and the former Castle Gate, whose surviving tower is the next stop on this route. In the other direction, along the line of the old walls, you reach the Wojanowska Tower.
Frequently asked questions
Can you go inside the Grodzka Tower? Since 2021 it has operated as a guesthouse, so the interior is open to guests. From the street you can see the portal and the details set in beside it.
How old is the Grodzka Tower? Fifteenth century, like the other towers of the inner wall. The date 1679 above the entrance belongs to the portal, which was brought here from another, demolished house.
Why did this particular tower survive? Because it stopped being a fortification in good time. Flats were made in it and a house was built onto it, so when the walls came down in the nineteenth century there was no wall here any more, only somebody’s address.
Who lived in the tower? Merchants, the postmaster and the town physician – the address was considered a good one, even though the building had until recently been military.
What are the details beside the entrance? Baroque architectural fragments from nearby houses that no longer exist. They were set in beside the portal, so the elevation is in effect a collection of keepsakes from demolished buildings.
How many towers did the walls of Jelenia Góra have? Several dozen. The Historical Atlas gives thirty-six, other studies twenty-odd, and the Grodzka Tower itself says thirty-eight.
What else survives of the town walls? The Wojanowska Tower and Gate with the bastion housing St Anne’s Chapel, the Castle Gate Tower, and stretches of wall absorbed into later buildings, mainly on ul. Jelenia. All of it – with the Grodzka Tower – is covered by a single register entry, number A/4953/614 of 28 August 1959.
