Sankt Laurentii Church Tower

The Sankt Laurentii Church Tower is a striking medieval relic in the centre of Roskilde — a tall Romanesque brick tower that stands alone, the last remnant of a parish church demolished after the Reformation. When the church was pulled down in the 16th century, the tower was left standing, perhaps as a landmark or perhaps simply because it was too solid to bother removing.

The tower is visible from the main shopping street and makes an arresting sight — a medieval structure in the middle of an ordinary town centre, with no church attached. It's a good illustration of how dramatically Roskilde shrank after it lost its status as the Danish capital: at its medieval peak the town had at least seven churches; today the tower is one of the few physical reminders of most of them.

things to do history architecture
A story
All that remains of Sankt Laurentii Church — once one of Roskilde's principal medieval parish churches — is a single brick tower that now stands isolated in the town centre like a punctuation mark from the past. The church itself was demolished in the 16th century during the Reformation, when Roskilde's declining population no longer needed all its medieval churches.

Other places in Things to Do