Long Street Foregate (Museum of Gdansk branch)

What to expect

The Long Street Foregate (Zespół Przedbramia) in Gdansk is made up of two Gothic-Renaissance buildings, the Prison Tower (Wieża Więzienna) and the Torture House (Katownia), which form the foregate of Long Street (ulica Długa) and today serve the Museum of Gdansk as exhibition rooms and a viewpoint. The address is Targ Węglowy 26. Your ticket also takes you up to the terrace at the top of the tower, open at the same times as the exhibition.

In the Prison Tower, across four floors, runs the exhibition “Gdańsk piękniejszy niż kiedykolwiek” (Gdansk More Beautiful Than Ever) on the rebuilding of the city destroyed in 1945. The city portal gdansk.pl describes it as photographs of Gdansk and its inhabitants, archive films and preserved sculptures from the front terraces. In the Torture House a second exhibition, “Od bramy do Muzeum. Krótka historia Zespołu Przedbramia” (From Gate to Museum. A Short History of the Foregate), tells, as its title says, the story of the buildings themselves.

Before you go to the ticket desk, take a look around the courtyard. Here stands the lapidarium, a collection of stone sculptures set up in 1910, and the headless figure on the Torture House is, as the museum puts it, a symbolic warning. From the terrace at the top you can see the Main Town, as the website fajnewypady.pl also points out.

If you are looking for amber, you have come to the wrong address. The Museum of Amber was housed in the Long Street Foregate for 15 years, but its permanent exhibition is now in the Great Mill (Wielki Młyn); here you will find two exhibitions about the city and the buildings, and the terrace.

Who it suits: those who want to see the Main Town from above and learn along the way how Gdansk was raised from the ruins after 1945, and anyone curious about the city’s old fortifications, which were later turned into a prison.

Who should skip it: wheelchair users and anyone who finds stairs difficult. There is no lift in the building, the main entrance is narrow, and the museum states plainly that the building is not adapted for visitors in wheelchairs. The exhibition occupies four levels of the tower, reached by hundreds of narrow, winding steps.

How long: the museum says that a visit to the temporary exhibition and the Long Street Foregate takes at least 45 minutes. That is the same as it gives for the exhibition rooms of the Main Town Hall, and more than the minimum of 30 minutes it gives for Uphagen House.

Tips

• The terrace is included in the ticket. You can take in the panorama of the Main Town from the terrace at no extra charge, during the exhibition’s opening hours. According to the museum, the viewing tower of the nearby Main Town Hall is closed for renovation, so come here for a view of the Main Town from above.
• Tickets at the shop desk. Tickets are sold at the shop desk, with its entrance from the courtyard, and sales end before the building closes, so do not turn up at the last minute. Prices: standard ticket 18 PLN (about 4 EUR), reduced 13 PLN (about 3 EUR).
• One longer day. Once a week the branch stays open longer than on other days: on Thursdays 10:00-18:00. The day it is closed: closed on Tuesdays.
• Watch out for holidays. The branch is closed on several public holidays; you will find the dates in the practical box.
• Stairs instead of a lift. Hundreds of narrow, winding steps are part of the visit, but there are places to rest on the successive levels of the exhibition, so you can take the climb in stages.
• Sign language and audio description. Part of the texts has been translated into Polish Sign Language, with the videos played by scanning QR codes; four photographs have audio description. Architectural barriers have not been removed because of the building’s historic character and its original defensive function.
• Tourist Card. The Odkrywca Premium package of the Tourist Card (Karta Turysty) of the Gdańsk Tourist Organisation covers entry to the Long Street Foregate; worth bearing in mind if you are planning several attractions in the city.
• Questions to the main office. The branch has no number of its own on the museum’s website; send questions to the Museum of Gdansk visitor services, tel. +48 789-015-097, e-mail kontakt@muzeumgdansk.pl.

Getting there

• Address: Targ Węglowy 26, 80-836 Gdańsk; the ticket desk is in the shop, with its entrance from the courtyard.
• Tram: according to the ZTM Gdańsk timetable, the closest stops are “Brama Wyżynna 02” (about 101 m in a straight line) and “Brama Wyżynna 01” (about 111 m), served by lines 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9. Further away are “Okopowa 01” (about 242 m; lines 8 and 9), “Hucisko 01” (about 252 m; lines 10 and 12) and “Śródmieście SKM 01” (about 286 m; lines 2, 3, 6 and 7).
• Bus: the stops “Brama Wyżynna 03” (about 94 m), “Brama Wyżynna 04” (about 103 m) and “Brama Wyżynna 05” (about 108 m) are served, according to the same timetable, by lines including 106, 108, 111, 112, 123, 132, 138, 154, 166, 178, 183, 186, 189, 208, 212 and 289.
• Line 100: stops at “Targ Drzewny 01”, about 234 m from the building.

Nearby

The Foregate is easy to combine with the museums on and around Long Street (distances in a straight line):

• Uphagen House, ul. Długa 12 - about 160 m. Another Museum of Gdansk branch, an 18th-century merchant’s town house with living quarters and service rooms; the museum gives at least 30 minutes for a visit.
• Gallery of Old Toys, ul. Piwna 19/21 - about 290 m. A private museum of Polish toys from 1920-1989, which presents itself as an attraction for children and a reminder of childhood for adults; a good match for families who start the day with the climb to the terrace.
• Main Town Hall, ul. Długa 46/47 - about 390 m. Another Museum of Gdansk branch, the former seat of the Main Town authorities; the museum gives at least 45 minutes for the exhibition rooms, and its viewing tower is closed for renovation.

Background

The headless figure on the Torture House is according to the Polish Wikipedia a sculpture of a headless turnkey, the work of Willem van der Meer. It was made during the rebuilding of the Torture House in 1593-1604, carried out by Antoni van Obberghen. The Prison Tower reached its present height earlier, in 1508-1509, thanks to Michał Enkinger.

The museum writes that the complex was at first the main part of the city’s medieval fortifications. When Gdansk built new, more effective defences in the 16th century, the Foregate was turned into the city prison.

Sources differ on the age of the Torture House. The Polish Wikipedia says it was built in the second half of the 14th century as a medieval fortification of the Main Town and, together with the Prison Tower, formed the foregate (barbican) of Long Street; the English Wikipedia says it was built in the 16th century. The Polish version thus speaks of a medieval fortification and dates the rebuilding of the Torture House to the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries.