The Town Castle in Banská Bystrica is located close to the north-western corner of the square. Barbician towers of the castle and the parish church are covered with Baroque helmits which constitute dominant features of the castle. The single-aisle Church of the Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary was initially built in the Roman style around 1255 when Banská Bystrica gained town privileges. The sacristy was later finished in the Gothic style. Side chapels, oratorio and prolonged sanctuaries have characteristic features of an advanced Late-Gothic style. The main aisle underwent Baroque-style modification after a fire broke out in the town in 1761. Painter Anton Schmidt gave the aisle an illusive fresco in the period of 1767 to 1770. In the niche of the southern façade is located an impressive sculpture of Christ on the Mount of Olives from the end of the 15th century which, fortunately, escaped the fire. At the end of the 15th century the originally Late-Gothic, but modified after a number of fires, the Church of the Holy Cross enriched the fortified surrounding area. The church has a decorative, Late-Gothic entrance portal. At the portal a narrow five-floor building of Matej’s House was fit into a semicircular fortified bastion. It was used by royal officials. The town administration had its seat in a block building of Pretorium which in the middle of the 16th century included an arcade loggia on its three sides. Entrance to the area was monitored through a barbican by town guards who had their barracks available in the area between gates. A conservation reconstruction from the end of the 20th century indicates the shape of walls in the southern and western part of the area as well as the shape of the fosse in front of the barbican.
Heritage > National cultural monuments
