A hill older than the town
The rise in Bytom's Zamłynie district looks modest today: the Bytomka river curves around one side, and damp meadows, once marshland, spread out on the others. That combination — a few metres of height with water all round — made it the obvious place for a stronghold in the 11th century.
The stronghold of Bytom was probably founded in the middle of the 11th century, during the Polish-Bohemian struggle over Silesia, to block the routes towards Kraków. The earliest written mentions come from the 1120s and from 1136. It mattered most around the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries as the seat of a district and later a castellany — until the town was chartered nearby and the centre of gravity moved from the hill to the market square.
The fortifications themselves have yet to be located, but archaeologists from the University of Silesia have found 12th-century pottery here, tying the stronghold to this particular rise. Its purpose seems to have been guarding the ground where silver and lead ores were worked — the same ores that later turned Bytom and Tarnowskie Góry into mining towns.
Four churches on one spot
A Romanesque stone church was founded here around 1170 by Duke Bolesław IV the Curly. Its appearance is known from an unusual source: the building is depicted on the Jaksa tympanum, which came from a demolished church in the Ołbin district of Wrocław. After the Hussites took Bytom in 1430, both church and stronghold most likely came to an end.
Two wooden churches followed; by 1598 the records mention only a wooden one. The 17th-century building was remodelled in 1681 and served as the cemetery church until the second half of the 19th century. In 1880 the parish priest Norbert Bonczyk had it taken down because it was in danger of collapse.
The fourth church, the present one, was finished a year later: a neo-Gothic brick building with a single nave and one tower set into the facade, designed by Jan Kowolik. It was consecrated on 7 June 1881. St Margaret's parish, merged in 1660 with the parish of the Assumption, is reckoned the oldest in Bytom — the town's first parish church stood not in the town but up here.
A bell older than the building
The tower holds a single bell, dedicated to St John of Nepomuk and weighing about sixty kilograms. It was cast in 1734 by Franciszek Stanke in Opava, which makes it roughly a century and a half older than the church it hangs in. The organ has nine stops.
Archaeology here is still producing finds: in 2018 work in the porch uncovered the remains of someone buried beneath the floor. The church was added to the Silesian Voivodeship register of monuments in 2015; the stronghold site has its own, considerably older entry.
Around the church
- The parish cemetery — in use since the second half of the 14th century, surrounding the church on every side
- St Margaret's Mission House — home of the Divine Word Missionaries, present on the hill since 1940 and running the parish
- The stronghold site — separately protected, with nothing visible above ground
- Meadows along the Bytomka — what is left of the marshes that defended the stronghold better than any rampart
- The view towards Szombierki — the towers of the Sacred Heart church stand out clearly, Upper Silesian modernism on a cathedral's scale
Getting there
- By bus — services from central Bytom towards Szombierki and Miechowice, then a few minutes uphill
- By train — Bytom station, then a bus or a walk through Zamłynie
- By car — approach from the Szombierki side, with parking by the church
- On foot — about forty minutes from Bytom's market square along the Bytomka valley
Worth knowing
This is a place to visit before the market square rather than after it. Only then does it become clear that the town did not grow up around its church but moved two kilometres away from it, leaving the church and its graveyard on the old stronghold hill.
The interior is open mainly around services; outside those hours it is best to ask at the parish. The outside and the cemetery can be walked at any time, and in any case the setting here is more interesting than any single architectural detail.
Bytom makes a day with a clear shape: this hill, the modernist church in Szombierki, the Upper Silesian Museum and the Art Nouveau tenements in the centre. The UNESCO-listed Tarnowskie Góry mine workings are not far either.
How to get there and practical info
- Location
- Bytom, Zamłynie district — St Margaret's Hill on ulica Małgorzatki, above the Bytomka
- Built
- completed in 1881, consecrated on 7 June 1881; designed by Jan Kowolik
- Style
- neo-Gothic, brick, single nave, one tower
- Earlier buildings
- a Romanesque church of about 1170 and two wooden churches; the present one is the fourth
- Protection
- Silesian Voivodeship register of monuments since 2015; the stronghold site listed separately
- Custodian
- St Margaret's parish, run by the Divine Word Missionaries, Diocese of Gliwice
- Time needed
- half an hour for the church and cemetery, longer with a walk down into the valley
- Current hours and tickets
- access to the hill is free; services and opening of the interior are announced by St Margaret's parish and the Diocese of Gliwice website
When to go
The meadows along the Bytomka green up quickly, and with the trees still bare the shape of the rise is easy to read.
The old cemetery is the shadiest spot in this part of town, and evening light sits well on the brickwork.
The best season here: mist in the valley and old cemetery trees turn the hill into an island of its own.
Short days limit a visit, but from the snow-covered hill the view reaches as far as the Szombierki towers.
Other sights in Silesian Voivodeship
Straight-line distances from „St Margaret's Church, Bytom" — calculated from real coordinates. By road it is often further.
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