Skip to main content

Fortress · St. Johann, Basel, Canton of Basel-Stadt

Spalentor

Spalentor

The Spalentor is a former gate of Basel's medieval town wall on the Spalenvorstadt, one of three town gates that survive in the city.

Why go

The Spalentor is a former town gate at Spalenvorstadt 46 in Basel. A canton of Basel-Stadt media release says Basel's three surviving town gates, the Spalentor, the St. Alban-Tor and the St. Johanns-Tor, go back in their core to the 14th century as part of the fortifications built after the earthquake of 1356, and that the decision to keep the Spalentor, when the walls came down after the town-expansion law of 1859, was very narrow. The canton's building office says the gate was completed in 1400 when its pointed spire was raised. It is not the Spalenschwibbogen, the inner gate on the Spalenberg demolished in 1838. XTOUR has no current source on visits to its interior, so the record is the gate as seen from the street.