The Medieval Fortification of Lębork

The city was surrounded with a defence wall with a height of between 6 and 10 m and total length of almost 1 200 m. The wall on the fieldstone pedestal was reinforced with 33 towers in equal intervals. The corner towers were much larger than the others, the so-called shell towers, located within the walls and serving only for defence. The best-preserved defence structure in Lębork is the tower referred to as Ivy, built into the north-east corner of the fortifications. Its botanic name comes from the ivy growing on the building, which froze during the winter of 1855. This tower is built on the plane of an irregular pentagon, decorated with glazed rhombus bricks. The tallest storey and its cone roof were not reconstructed until the beginning of the 20^th Century. The building is currently in private hands. The north-west corner of the defence walls hosts a tower built on a square plane (thus referred to as the Square), with sides of approximately 11m. Two pointed-arch entrances NOT THEM AGAIN!pointed in the direction of the city used to lead to the tower. In the second half of the nineteen eighties, during the adaptation to the headquarters of the General Technical Organisation, a third storey was added to the two well-preserved ones and covered with a roof. During the years 2009 – 2010, the Lębork fortifications were renovated within the scope of the Lębork Downtown Historical Livening project through the restoration of the medieval city fortifications. Tower No. 24 was rebuilt in the style of a 15^th Century structure. The west facade was glassed in to make a more complete presentation of the exhibits inside. The exhibition presents the lives of the townsfolk from the second half of the 15^th Century – two storeys host replicas of medieval attire, weapons and armour, and objects of everyday use, as well as genre scenes. Tower No. 27 was rebuilt in the style of a 19^th Century bolted structure. Furthermore, the structure located on the stone pedestal of tower No. 32 was renovated in the style of a building from the beginning of the 10^th Century. It should be noted that the first floor hosts the fireplace room, while the second is home to a knight’s chamber from the second half of the 15^th Century. The tower also hosts two furnaces, modelled after the style of the 16^th Century. The three-storey building is the current home of the Lębork Historical Brotherhood.