During excavations of the remains of the town hall in Słupsk, North Poland, archaeologists unearthed the basements and foundations of a building not known from any historic plans.
So far archaeologists lead by Maciej Marczewski believed that two town halls existed at the square – the Medieval one and the modern one. But the recent discoveries indicate that there was also a third town hall. The researchers discovered structures at the basement level and a pavement of a town hall that was a post-Medieval structure but was a different building than the known one that was demolished in 1901. Researchers state that the Medieval structure is known from maps and drawings, the modern building on old photographs, but there are no documents showing the third building corresponding to the discovered structures. Archaeologists suspect that there might have existed a building of a town hall between the Medieval one demolished in 1798 and modern one demolished in 1901.
The researchers state that the foundations are preserved only fragmentarily. The bricks used in the construction differ and the structure was several times rebuilt. Medieval bricks were also reused in this structure. It is suspected that the building was erected around the 17th century, but at this point it is just a hypothesis. Archaeologists state that they have also discovered remains of structures functioning in the vicinity of the town hall indicated by presence of basements, foundations, and bases for pillars of a presumed arcade.
(after Radio Gdańsk & Przemysław Woś)