Czluchów Gate is the only surviving gate out of the three entrances which once led to the town. The remaining two (Młyńska and Gdańska) were pulled down in 1838. The gates constituted a significant element in the town’s defensive system. All of them had drawbridges at the front, with bridgeheads protecting it from the other side. A six-floor Czluchów gate was built on a square plan in the Pomeranian Gothic style. Its first floors form an entrance, with doors which are considered to have led to rooms with a mechanism for lifting the portcullis and the drawbridge.
Throughout history the gate has served different purposes. It was used as a watchtower and armoury, then it functioned as a prison for municipal residents. This is when the inscriptions engraved on the brick walls come from. The gate was also a bell tower for Protestant Churches. Today, it houses the exhibition rooms of the Historic and Ethnographic Museum.
The Museum’s collection has been divided into four sections: archaeological, historical, ethnographical, and artistic. The last one is located on the top floor and hosts temporary exhibitions. It overlooks the town from four different directions, offering magnificent views.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).