San Nicolás church stands in the suburb of the same name outside the walls, a medieval quarter inhabited by Christians and dedicated to agriculture and sheep farming. It also had a large number of Mudejar residents. It was built in Caleno granite in the late-Romanesque style of Ávila between the second half of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th. The upper end and porches remain from the original construction.
The three entrances take the form of semi-circular arches with archivolts. The northern entrance is the most ornamental and is decorated with wedges, palmettes and ivy leaves, which are very typical motifs on Romanesque churches in Zamora. The capitals of the archivolts have plant motifs.
The tower is built on to the upper end from the North. It is divided into three bodies and shows two periods of construction. A Vetton animal sculpture was reused for the plinth.
It has three naves: the central nave opens into a large apse and the side naves into rectangular chapels. Except for the upper end, the temple was covered with Baroque-style plasterwork in the 17th century.
References:Towering 52 meters above the sea, Bengtskär lighthouse is the tallest one in Scandinavia. The building started in in 1905 after the shipwreck of S/S Helsingfors and was completed in 1906. The lighthouse was designed by architect Florentin Granholm. On December a special petrol lantern, designed and built in Paris, was brought to Bengtskär and installed atop the tower.
German fleet bombarded Bengstkär in the First World War in 1914. Since the Gulf of Finland was heavily mined, it was not until 1919 that the surrounding seas were declared safe for shipping, that the light was lit again.
After the war the military value of Bengtskär increased as part of the defence system of independent Finland. In Second World War (1941) Soviet Union made a suprise attack to island. After a bloody battle, the small Finnish garrison emerged victorious. Intermittent repairs to the facility continued during the post-war period.