Baszta Pod Zrębem, Gdańsk

Baszta Pod Zrębem is the shattered remnant of a late-Gothic defensive tower in Gdańsk’s Old Suburb, beside the Motława. Take in the broken brickwork and the open wound in its mass: this ruin once formed part of a far longer barrier protecting this district. It rose in fourteen eighty-seven, completing the medieval fortifications around the Old Suburb.

Its original form was round, apart from a flattened northern wall, and it had a tiled conical roof, a small pinnacle, dormers, and a firing gallery. The tower’s Polish name recalls a later rectangular roof with projecting corners extending beyond the curved walls. Alterations in the early sixteenth century replaced the firing arrangements with a platform for artillery, but that change also made the tower less stable.

When newer outer defenses took over in the seventeenth century, the old tower became a military storehouse. It survived wartime destruction, yet neglect took its toll: part of the northwestern corner collapsed in nineteen seventy-five, and a storm brought down the whole northern section in nineteen eighty-two. What remains has been secured against further collapse. Nearby stands the White Tower, another survivor from this vanished defensive line.