Goldsmith with a bouquet of lilacs. Craftsmen in the Lock

This is the fifth stop along the audio tour presenting the history of the Cathedral Island. For more information about the tour, please click here.

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At first, the room with the Information Desk, which we have just passed by, served as a soldiers’ chamber. In the past, there was no staircase here. Both floors were separated from each other by a wooden floor. The brick plinth along the walls is what is left of it. One could enter the building through the gate, which since then has been reconstructed and decorated with a neon sign. This used to be the entrance to the Strugarek Family’s flat. Let’s go downstairs and turn left.

What was in the Cathedral Lock’s cellars in the past?

From the early years the cellars served as a storage, the so-called casemates. First, they were used by the Prussian army. The ceiling in the rooms downstairs is noticeably lower. Light bricks on the edges of the nooks and along the ceiling are not just decoration. They improved visibility in the dark interior.

The post-war Cathedral Lock was also a place of work for many craftsmen. For a few decades after the war, several workshops were located here, including a foundry, a locksmith’s shop, a goldsmith’s shop as well as a tram repair workshop. This space was also used by fitters, a house painter and even a brush maker. Most of them provided services for the nearby archdiocese and local inhabitants.

In the room we’ve already visited, the one with the horse trough, Wacław Pitak used to run a locksmith’s workshop. This is how Father Marian Lewandowski, the director of the nearby Archdiocesan Museum at the time, remembers Mr Pitak: When a key broke or the door started to hang crooked on loose hinges, Mr Pitak was our saviour. You would go and ask him for help. He immediately intervened, dropped all the tools he was holding and rushed to save you. If I remember correctly, he also participated in putting the finishing touches on the domes of the cathedral towers.

Then, the rooms in the cellars were used by a talented goldsmith Artur Lindner who ran his workshop there. He is remembered by his neighbours as quite a peculiar individual. This is how Bogdan Puchalski remembers him: I had a very interesting neighbour who lived right behind my wall, which in the thinnest place was 140 cm thick because it’s part of a fort. […] At the time a young man my age lived there. His name was Artur Lindner. He used the left part of the fort and could make use of the whole cellar as well. When you entered his place, there was, let’s call it, a park with heavy machines, a large lathe, stand drills, some machines resembling cranes […] He made safes, locks. As far as I know, he could also open safes. […] Priests also brought chalices and monstrance for him to repair or restore.

Mr Lindner’s passion was collecting old films. He kept them in a large wardrobe and displayed them on a huge two-metre-wide projector. Aleksandra Pudelska, the Archdiocesan Museum employee, has particularly fond memories of the goldsmith. She says:

The top of the fort was covered with earth and overgrown with lilacs […]. Artur would cut them from time to time so that they didn’t damage the ceiling. I have particularly fond memories of these lilacs because sometimes Artur would come with a huge bouquet to give me best wishes for my name day, which is in May.

Unfortunately, Mr Lindner died young. When he passed away the workshop spaces were used by cathedral fitters. Then, the building was taken over by the Archdiocesan Museum.

You will find the next recording near the staircase. You’ll hear from me there.