Nyirbator

Nyirbator was the seat of the Bathory family, and their money built two late Gothic churches at the turn of the sixteenth century that are out of proportion to a small town on the eastern plain. One, now Reformed, is a single tall hall with a net vault and the Bathory tomb; the other, the Minorite church, keeps a set of Baroque carved wooden altars made in the eighteenth century by a Slovak workshop, the largest of them the Passion altar, dense with figures and unmistakable once seen. Between and beside them stands a free-standing wooden bell tower of the seventeenth century, around thirty metres tall with four corner turrets, one of the best of the type in the country.

History

The settlement is first recorded in 1279, its name probably from the Old Turkic batir, "hero", and the land already belonged to the Gutkeled clan, ancestors of the Báthorys, for whom it became the centre of their estates and the family burial place. By the 18th century the town had grown poor, and it lost its town status in the reorganisation of 1872, regaining it in 1973 (Wikipedia, Nyírbátor).

What's there

• The wooden bell tower - a seventeenth-century timber structure with corner turrets.
• The Passion altar - Baroque carved wood dense with figures.
• The Reformed hall church - a single tall Gothic space with net vaulting.
• The Bathory tomb - the family that built both churches.

When to go

April to October. Half a day. Both churches have limited hours and may need to be opened on request; the tourist office arranges access. Summer brings a music festival.

Practical notes

Opening hours are short and unreliable outside summer, and a wasted trip is possible. The town itself is plain and poor. Interpretation is largely in Hungarian.

Nearby

Mariapocs is north-west; the Romanian border lies east.