Zabkowice Leaning Tower

The tower at Zabkowice is thirty-four metres high, built in the fourteenth century as the belfry of the parish church, and it leans a little over two metres from vertical - the deviation grew after a fire in 1858 and has been monitored and stabilised since. It is climbable and the stair being out of plumb is the reason people go up. The town's other claim is stranger. In 1606 Zabkowice, then Frankenstein, was the scene of a gravedigger scandal in which a group were accused of spreading plague by tampering with corpses, and the case was widely reported in Europe; whether Mary Shelley knew the name from that or from a map is unsettled, but the town has built a small museum and a walking route on the connection and calls itself the Frankenstein town. There are also castle ruins from the 1520s, an early bastioned design by the same architect who worked at Legnica.

What you actually see

• A thirty-four-metre belfry - leaning just over two metres out of true.
• A stair out of plumb - climbable, which is the point of it.
• The Frankenstein story - a 1606 gravedigger scandal, worked up into a museum route.
• Castle ruins of the 1520s - an early bastioned design on the edge of town.

When to go

April to October. Two hours.

Honest expectations

The Shelley connection is unproven and the town leans on it hard. The tower climb is narrow and closes in bad weather. The castle is a ruin with little interpretation. There is not much else in town.

Nearby

Klodzko is south; Wroclaw is north.