Baszta Sandomierska, Kraków

Baszta Sandomierska is the sturdy historic tower at Wawel’s south-western edge: one of only three towers still surviving on the hill. Built in the Gothic tradition, it stands with Lubranka Tower as a rare pair of mid-fifteenth-century defensive towers designed for firearms. Its history already turns grim in 1462, when documents call it a new tower.

Nearby, six councillors were executed after townspeople killed the magnate Jędrzej Tęczyński. Local tradition also places nobles from the Sandomierz region among this tower’s prisoners. The lower levels changed purpose in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, becoming quarters for servants of the starost, the royal district official.

By the eighteenth century the structure had fallen into poor condition. Austrian rebuilding in 1856 altered its roof and added a stair annex, but Zygmunt Hendel’s restoration of 1911 to 1914 removed those interventions. Notice the rebuilt defensive details on the upper part of the tower.

Conservation in 2003 and 2004 reinstated three projecting gun positions, the third-floor walkway, its exterior stairs, and the original arrangement of upper ceilings. Alongside runs the stone defensive wall, raised after the Second World War over early-fourteenth-century foundations. In 1772, Bar Confederates entered Wawel through the outlet beside it.