Bydgoszcz Old Market square is an oblong place (about ), situated in the old town district of the city of Bydgoszcz. The City Hall flanks one of its side, and nearby is located St. Martin and St. Nicholas Cathedral.
Location The Old Market square marks the center of Bydgoszcz, a Polish city established in 1346 by king Casimir III the Great. The place faces watercourses on both of its flanks: Brda (river) river, 100 m from its northern frontage; a leat channel (), originally dug to power mills (Młyn in polish), running 150 m from its western frontage.
Quaint and historic streets stem from this square: Northbound towards Grodzka street and Brda river: Mostowa street and Father Tadeusz Malczewski street; Eastbound towards Podwale Street: Kręta street and Teofil Magdziński street; Southbound towards Długa street: John II Kazimierz street and Stephen Báthory street; Westward towards' Jezuicka Street: Niedźwiedzia street and Farna Street.
History Bydgoszcz market place has been charted in 1346, then paved in 1604. Until the end of the 17th century, court judgments were carried out there in public. It was the administrative and commercial heart of the city until the beginning of the 20th century, where Bydgoszcz economic, cultural and social life teemed. The market and the rim of properties located around constituted the core of the nascent city. Further expansion followed with plots built along Jezuicka or Długa streets.
Elements from excavations
Archaeological diggings carried out in the area of the place unearthed early Middle Ages artefacts, indicating that the area was inhabited before Bydgoszcz establishment. Oldest items, dating back to pre-settlement, have been found in the north-east corner of the Old Market Square: ceramics from the 12th century and beginning of the 13th century. Objects from the Lusatian culture (pottery fragments) have even been recorded below the early medieval layer, in several locations around the place.
Another excavation, performed in 1969, exhumed relics of St. Ignatius of Loyola Jesuit Church, located on the western flank and demolished in 1940: fragments of wooden buildings, a wooden well originally located in the courtyard edifice, along with large amounts of clay and glass vessel fragments.
Diggings at the southern frontage of the square unveiled fragments of wooden pipes running along north–south and northeast–southwest directions.
During an excavation running through the middle of the place, elements of the foundations of the former Old Town Hall have been found.
Most interesting discoveries were made during a 2010 archaeological campaign, realized prior to the launching of reconstructions linked to Bydgoszcz Urban Revitalization Plan. These excavations unveiled well-preserved foundations of the former gothic town hall (e.g. vaulted cellars) once standing in the middle of Old Market square, basements of the town hall tower and merchant stalls. In addition, traces of settlement dating back to the 12th century and elements of Iron Age Pomeranian culture period have been found.
Jagiellonian period (1346–1772) The original buildings of the Market Square were made of wood. Residential brick buildings do not appear before the 15th century. The Gothic brick edifices from the end of the 15th century were expanded with Baroque features in the 17th century and rebuilt at the beginning of the 20th century with Eclectic and Art Nouveau façades. The oldest element preserved in the vicinity of the Market Square can be found at the back of the house at Farna Street 6: it is a stone tablet with a Latin carving, displaying the date (1593) of the building and the initials of the owner -Bartosz Krąpiewski-, city councilor and mayor of Bydgoszcz between 1599 and 1603.
Presumably, the first town hall, made of wood, was built in the 14th century at the centre of the market place. During the following century, it was replaced by a Gothic brick edifice. After its burning in 1511, a construction of a new town hall started, according to the design of master Jan from Gdańsk. It was completed around 1600, and featured a Renaissance high building with a tower, which was the pride of the city.
Documented sources report the start of a construction in 1523 of a water supply network in the city, thoroughly modernized after 1541 by pipe-master Walenty from Bochnia. Wooden pipes were laid on the surface of the Market place and four public water wells built, probably connected with waterworks. During the second part of the 17th century, together with the downturn and depopulation of Bydgoszcz, the water supply network was neglected, but it partially fulfilled its role until the 19th century.
At the beginning of the 17th century, at its heyday before the Polish partitions period, chronicler Wojciech Łochowski described Bydgoszcz as follows: "The whole city is girdled by a wall, there is a high tower at the forefront of the market, from 1600, neatly set, and the town hall is decorated with brick. Brick houses, tiled roofs and water splashes compose the neatly decorated market".
In 1617, a permanent community of Jesuits was established in the city, thanks to the support of inhabitants and the action of Father Jan Kuczborski, Bishop of Chełmno since 1614. They received ownership of several tenements standing at the Market Square, where they rebuilt a residence and a school. Thanks to many funding (Bydgoszcz city council, bishop Kasper Działyński, the Polish Chancellor and Jerzy Ossoliński, Bydgoszcz Starosta), the Jesuit community expanded its facility. The area is delimited today by the Old Market Square to the east, Farna Street to the north, Jezuicka Street to the west and Niedźwiedzia Street to the south. Between 1637 and 1649, along the western frontage of current Old Market place was built the Holy Cross church, adorned with two towers in 1655 and 1695. In 1653, the residential building was completed; in 1780, it housed a high school, elevated to the rank of Jesuit College. The ensemble also featured a theater hall for cultural activities, which had been used until the Municipal Theater was created in 1814. The complex was gradually expanded and embellished throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, and became at the time the hallmark of the place and the entire city. In 1804, the church was re-consecrated as St. Ignatius of Loyola Church in Bydgoszcz.
During that period, the Old Market Square witnessed multiple visits of high-ranked Polish officials. Until 1656, those dignitaries, while in the city, stayed at the castle and the retinue rented rooms in houses downtown. Among the most famous visitors, one can cite: Władysław II Jagiełło; Casimir IV Jagiellon; Sigismund I the Old, who chaired the Sejm gathered in Bydgoszcz in 1520; Stephen Báthory, who stayed three months in 1577. From 26 October to 6 November 1657 the Jesuit college in Bydgoszcz housed negotiations between John II Casimir Vasa and the Elector of Brandenburg Frederick William, which ended with the signing of the Treaty of Bromberg on the Old Market.
At the time, the place was mainly used as a city market square, as originally designed at the establishment of Bydgoszcz in 1346. This scheme had been identical in all cities ruled by German town law, with slight variations (Magdeburg rights, Kulm law). Several fees were charged: fees for market trade, one of the city's sources of income during fair market; customs duty on salt, herring and hops, for the Starosta, the wójt (head of town) from the middle of the 17th century and for the city from 1526; fees for location and paving. In the Middle Ages, Bydgoszcz market only operated on Saturdays, but in the middle of the 18th century, it stood also on Tuesdays. In addition to the market, larger commercial fairs were organized, as there were no major restrictions for external buyers. On 17 December 1484 King Casimir IV Jagiellon granted Bydgoszcz the right to organize three fairs during the year: on Saint Agnes day (21 January), on Saint Giles day (1 September) and on Saint Martin day (11 November). Sigismund II Augustus allowed a fourth fair in 1555, for the Octave of Corpus Christi. Before 1669, two more days were granted to the city: on Saint Anthony day (13 June) and Saint Francis of Assisi (on 4 October). Although in the second half of the 17th century and during the 18th century the frequency of trade events in Bydgoszcz was the largest in Poland, local activity did not reap the benefits of the situation, in that the economic decline of the city had already started.
Prussian partition period (1772–1920) After the First Partition of Poland, Kingdom of Prussia seized Poland and Bydgoszcz, drawing up an exact inventory of the city. On a detailed map realized by geometer Greth in 1774, properties on the Market Square are, by and large, the same as those currently standing, apart from a few plots not built at the time, at the corners with Teofil Magdziński street and with Farna Street. In the last quarter of the 18th century, there was no more parcels left: on the corner with John II Casimir street was constructed a large building, dedicated to host the Netze District authorities and the Court of Appeal. The entire western frontage, formerly owned by the Jesuits, was taken over by the Prussian state. In 1788, the first artificial lighting system in the city was installed on the market, replacing superannuated street oil lamps (in 1806, there were still 97 oil lamp posts operating in Bydgoszcz).
At the beginning of the 19th-century (Napoleonic Wars), the Old Market Square was the location where important "political" speeches were made: on 6 December 1806 an anti-Prussian uprising was publicly proclaimed, and on 19 February 1807, a decree supporting the Duchy of Warsaw was solemnly read. Today's Provincial and Municipal Public Library building then housed the seat of Bydgoszcz Department and the ex-Jesuit college hosted the main school of the region. The Duchy of Warsaw ceased to exist in 1812, and Bydgoszcz was incorporated anew into the Kingdom of Prussia.
Between 1830 and 1834, the Prussian authorities demolished the remains of the old town hall which was standing up in the middle of the actual square: municipal offices were moved to the tenement house at Długa street 37 (today's Ratuszowy hotel). In 1817, a royal gymnasium was opened in the premises of the former Jesuit college; the high school has been relocated in 1878 to its current place at Plac Wolności. Since 1878, the mayor of Bydgoszcz has always been inhabiting the late Jesuit college building.
On an 1834 town plan, 31 individual estates were listed, 9 in the southern frontage, 5 in the western (plus the Jesuit church), 9 in the northern and 8 the eastern. In the middle of the 19th century, a new street, Jatki Street, was cut out in the north-eastern corner of the place, connecting with Grodzka Street.
On 18 June 1848, following a violent storm, the Baroque steeple of the towers on the Jesuit church were destroyed. They were initially covered with cone-shaped roofs then rebuilt with Neo-Gothic features from 1880 to 1882. At the same time, the church façade was also reconstructed.