Poland · 19th century
Bastion III Kleparz ranks #6,265 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #238 of the 397 mapped in Poland. Founded 1856, it is older than 7% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 705 atlas entries founded in the 19th century. 12 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Kraków, 1 km away. See how Poland compares in the castle statistics.
Bastion III "Kleparz" (the Kleparz Fort) is a standard reduit fort of 1856–1859 at 2/4 Kamienna Street in Kraków. It is the only fort of this type preserved in an almost original state.
Because of its position on the vital northern section of the defences, it is one of the most powerful forts of the core of the Kraków Fortress. An outer earth bank (a counterguard) shields the moat, which is protected by two double caponiers of the "cat's ears" type. The main rampart has the outline of a bastion, with a revetted slope; there were artillery positions on the rampart. Inside the rampart is the retrenchment, a horseshoe-shaped, two-storey brick reduit with an earth mantle on top. The courtyards lie between the rampart and the reduit, and inside the reduit.
Behind the reduit, a long gorge formed a trapezoidal caponier intended to fire along the moat in front of the fortress's perimeter rampart (the moat and the rampart adjoined the fort at the rear). The gorge ended in a massively extended rear caponier, which already lay inside the fortress's line of defence and protected the fort if the enemy broke into the perimeter and attacked it from the city side. This structure had its own single-storey brick courtyard. The main gate was protected by two bastions. This unusual construction with two caponiers came from the fort being built into the perimeter rampart of the fortress. The Kleparz bastion thus had a double function: it protected the main line of defence of the whole fortress and at the same time formed an autonomous unit.
In the 1860s the fort was almost impregnable because of its elaborate defensive structure. Rapid technological progress made it obsolete in the 1880s. In 1884 traverses with shelters were added on the rampart, and in 1909 barracks.
Machine-translated from “Bastion (fort reditowy) III „Kleparz”” on the Polish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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