Tower of St. Nicholas Church
Originally an early gothic church from the beginning of the 13th century stood here, and it was also consecrated in honour of St. Nicholas of Myra. There was already a marketplace nearby during the Romanesque era. The baroque St. Nicholas Cathedral was erected in the years 1703 – 35 under the supervision of the important architect Christoph Dientzenhofer, and later under his son Kilian Ignaz. This building in the Malá Strana district is one of the most stylistically pure and beautiful examples of high-baroque architecture north of the Alps. While the cathedral was the property of the Church, the adjacent tower belonged to the municipality of Malá Strana. Consequently, it has its own building number (556) and entrance. The tower, which also served as a belfry and a watchtower, was built after the cathedral by Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer. It was completed in 1755 by his pupil and son-in-law Anselm Lurag. Naturally, the bells were hung in the tower five years before its completion. The tower and the dome of the cathedral are intentionally the same height, i.e. 74 m, and they are both conceived so that they correspond panoramically with St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle. The belfry also subsequently became a Prague watchtower. The last watchman lived here until 1891. Until that time, he was obliged to ring a bell in the event of a fire and to hang a red flag from the window in the direction of the conflagration, as well as a lantern at night.
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