St. Mary’s Church (Sankta Maria kyrka) is the oldest building in Ystad. The construction was began around the year 1200. The Romanesque style church was enlarged in the 1400s. The tower collapsed in a storm in 1648 when the nave was also damaged. The church was restored to double size.
There is a big altarpiece made of oak in the early 1400s and two medieval crucifixes. The pulpit is a great sample of Scanian Baroque style.
There is a tradition of night watch guardi watching over in the church tower. The tradition began in mid-1700s and is still alive. His duty is to blow the horn four times per night.
References:The Jan Hus Memorial stands at one end of Old Town Square. The huge monument depicts victorious Hussite warriors and Protestants who were forced into exile 200 years after Hus, and a young mother who symbolises national rebirth. The monument was so large that the sculptor designed and built his own villa and studio where the work could be carried out. It was unveiled in 1915 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Jan Hus' martyrdom. The memorial was designed by Ladislav Šaloun and paid for solely by public donations.
Born in 1369, Hus became an influential religious thinker, philosopher, and reformer in Prague. He was a key predecessor to the Protestant movement of the sixteenth century. In his works he criticized religious moral decay of the Catholic Church. Accordingly, the Czech patriot Hus believed that mass should be given in the vernacular, or local language, rather than in Latin. He was inspired by the teachings of John Wycliffe.