In 1356 a major earthquake struck Basel, destroying every major church and castle within 30km of the city. It remains the largest quake ever recorded in Central Europe. As a result, the residents had to rebuild most of their city, including the city wall. The new wall enclosed a large crescent, whose inner curve was formed by 2.5km of the Rhine’s left bank, and included 40 watch towers and five entry gates. The outward facing layer of the wall was 2 metres thick, the inner one 1.6 metres. And there was a water-filled moat dug outside it (as seen in an earlier post).

The Spalentor is the largest of the three remaining gates, reaching to 40 metres (the round towers are 28 metres high). It was preserved, along with two others, when the city wall was dismantled in the late 19th century to ease the city’s expansion, and restored by the canton in 1933. It originally had an extension gate and a drawbridge, as shown in this drawing.

The other two remaining gates are the St-Alban’s Tor, whose clock bells we could hear from our temporary apartment, and St-Johann’s Tor, whose tower we can see from the kitchen of our permanent apartment.