Visby City Wall
Visby ringmur
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- In medieval Sweden only three towns had walls: Stockholm, Kalmar and Visby.
- The Gunpowder Tower was raised in 1160–61 in connection with a trade agreement with the Duke of Saxony, and once had a twin across the harbour.
- Building the landward wall is probably linked to a feud between the town and Gotland's rural assembly that erupted into civil war in 1288.
- The 'Gate of Love' got its name by accident: it was once the Tar Gate, where ropes were tarred, and the similar-sounding words merged.
- According to legend, a goldsmith's daughter was walled up in the Maiden's Tower for betraying Visby to Valdemar IV, but the tower did not yet exist in 1361.
- Tradition says Valdemar's army marched through the breach thirteen abreast, yet the original ground-level arches of that stretch survive on the town side.
- A Danish visitor in 1753–54 found the Mill Tower's three floors full of hand querns, where burghers' maids ground malt and grain.
- The so-called Coin House was built around 1225, decades before the wall absorbed it, and there is no evidence it ever struck coins.
- The wall outlived its military role as a toll barrier, and by the time Sweden abolished internal tolls in 1810 it was already a famous landmark.
- The caponier called Sparbössan still bears bullet marks from a rifle range that operated in front of it from the 1830s to 1900.
Why it is worth it
Visby is ringed by one of the best preserved medieval town walls in Europe. Of its original 3.6 kilometres, 3.44 still stand, closing the old Hanseatic town on three sides against the land and following the shore on the fourth. Of the 29 large and 22 small towers that once punctuated it, 27 large towers survive, so that the silhouette of Visby from outside is almost exactly the one medieval sailors saw: grey limestone curtain and steep-roofed towers rising above the Baltic.
The oldest piece is Kruttornet, the Gunpowder Tower, built around 1160 to guard the harbour and the oldest surviving secular building in the Nordic countries. The landward wall followed from the 1270s and 1280s, and gates such as Österport, Norderport and Snäckgärdsporten were built around 1290; in the 1350s the wall was raised by three or four metres. Its history is written in its stones. In 1361 King Valdemar IV of Denmark took Gotland, and local tradition holds that he had part of the wall pulled down so he could enter as a conqueror; the fifteenth-century Jungfrutornet, the Maiden's Tower, has its own legend tied to that invasion. Silverhättan, the corner tower with buttresses and archers' gallery, was added under the Teutonic Knights around 1400.
Each tower has its own character. Långa Lisa, six storeys high, is the tallest; Kajsartornet served as the town prison; Dalmanstornet guided ships into harbour before becoming a granary in 1784. Later openings were cut for convenience, among them Kärleksporten, the Gate of Love, made in 1872 in a collapsed stretch. The Hanseatic Town of Visby, wall included, has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1995.
Getting there
The wall encircles the old town of Visby on Gotland. Visby Airport (VBY) is about 4 km north of the town. Destination Gotland ferries sail to Visby from Nynäshamn, south of Stockholm, in about 3 hours 15 minutes, and from Oskarshamn in about 3 hours. Several gates, including Norderport, Söderport and Österport, lead through the wall, and the walk around its outside is one of the classic ways to see it.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Visby City Wall is a medieval defensive wall surrounding the Swedish town of Visby on the island of Gotland. As the strongest, most extensive, and best preserved medieval city wall in Scandinavia, the wall forms an important and integral part of Visby World Heritage Site.
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