Medieval canal in Frombork
The Medieval Canal in Frombork is an old waterway that runs about five kilometers through town and connects the Bauda River to the Baltic Sea. It was dug through the land following the natural slope of the terrain to move water downhill without requiring much effort.
The canal was built in the late 1300s under the Teutonic Order to bring fresh water from the Bauda River into the growing town. In the late 1500s, a water tower with an innovative pumping system was installed that lifted water more than 80 feet (25 meters) high to supply the cathedral and other important buildings on the hill.
The canal represented a source of pride for Frombork's residents as a sign of their engineering skill and innovation. People depended on it to solve practical problems like water access and flood protection in their daily lives.
You can walk along the canal banks and see the old bridges crossing it, as well as explore the remains of the water tower that once supplied the town. The site is now a protected monument with markers explaining how the medieval water system worked.
The pumping system installed in 1571-1572 was designed by Valentin Hendel from Wroclaw and was only the second of its kind in all of Europe, after a similar one built in Augsburg in 1548. Remarkably, Hendel was an ancestor of the famous Baroque composer George Frideric Handel, whose family later moved to Saxony.
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