Historic buildings in Bydgoszcz

At the turn of the 20th century, the canal was operated by nearly 3,000 rafters working for the largest shipping company, Bydgoszcz Lloyd. Additionally, from the 1840s onward, the canal within the city and suburban areas led to a thriving social scene centered around restaurant and entertainment venues established nearby.

We invite you to take a walk along the canal.

It is a great place to experience the history of Bydgoszcz. Walking among the historic trees, you can easily picture the old barges and timber rafts being locked through. To learn more and see authentic artifacts from those times, be sure to visit the nearby Bydgoszcz Canal Museum.

As a St. Bernard monk wrote in 1604:

"Thanks to this charitable river, the town has achieved so much splendor and wealth that nobility from other places, seeing that their property is melting away, come to Bydgoszcz to cover their losses by buying grain and sending it to Gdansk. Citizens who give their daughters in marriage, offer a respectable dowry".

The city quickly exceeded the designated area within ​​its city walls.

Economic prosperity acted as a magnet and attracted the development of settlements in the city. And what do you think, how did Bydgoszcz develop spatially from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century? Concentrically around the Old Market Square and the Town Hall? Not at all. Just look at the historical and contemporary maps. Bydgoszcz developed along the Brda River - west along the Bydgoszcz Canal and east towards the Vistula.The current center of Bydgoszcz, from the former castle in the east, to Mill Island in the west, used to be one big docking port. On both sides of the Brda there were granaries, warehouses, marinas and repair shipyards. On the river banks there were also Carmelite and St. Bernardine monasteries and Clarist convents, but mostly granaries. The Brda was of utmost importance for the city.

The seventeenth century town mayor Wojciech Łochowski wrote proudly in his Chronicle:

"Bydgoszcz is famous for its harbor. On both sides of the river there are magnificent buildings, worth seeing, built exclusively for the storage of large quantities of grain arriving from Wielkopolska, all over Pałuki, Krajna and Kashubian regions. It is difficult to find another city in the Polish Kingdom where every year such large quantities of grain are collected and exported to Gdansk. Returning to Bydgoszcz from Gdansk, up the river, there's herring, sea salt, oranges, wines from France, the Rhine, the Canaries, Crete, and Malvasia".

During the Polish partition, the importance of water trade did not diminish. On the contrary, between 1772-1800, the Bydgoszcz Canal to the Noteć and the Oder experienced a boom, the former Mint Island was converted into Mill Island, on which an entire complex of mills and granaries, among others, was built. This provided the food supply of the Prussian army. It was also around that time, that the huge Royal Granaries were erected just next to Mill Island and the city, in the bend of the Brda. They were destroyed during the Second World War and replaced by the modern New Opera House.

Waterway transport flourished until the second half of the nineteenth century, when it began to be gradually replaced by railway.

To this day, a few historical granaries have been preserved in Bydgoszcz, of which only four date from earlier than the nineteenth century. All of them are on the banks of the river, in the city center, all half-timbered and all currently functioning as museums. The three granaries at 9 – 11 Grodzka Street, (which are also the modern logo of Bydgoszcz) were built in the years 1793-1800, by the merchant Samuel Gotlieb Engelmann. 

The original complex in Grodzka St. consisted of five granaries in a row. In 1960, two of them were destroyed completely (13 and 15). However, they were so firmly inscribed in the urban tradition, that many Bydgoszcz voices spoke up for their reconstruction. The preserved granaries were turned into museum exhibitions in 1962 and a major overhaul and modernization of the interior was completed in 2006.

A particularly favorite spot of Bydgoszcz citizens is the characteristic granary next to Mostowa Street, sometimes called "Dutch" because of its gabled roof style. In front of the granary there's a small amphitheater, and a medieval bronze model of Bydgoszcz.