House of Plague

The House of Plague in Gdańsk-Oliwa, Poland is a monument located on the European Route of Brick Gothic. Today's House of Plague was formerly known as the Gatehouse or the Great Gate. Built around the 14th century, it was considered a Gothic pearl and was the main entrance gate within the defensive chains that surrounded the local Cistercian abbey. The building housed the seat of the mayor of the monastery and a chapel. The gate serves a representative function―eminent guests, including Polish kings, used it to enter the abbey. In 1709, an epidemic of plague struck Gdańsk, which killed half of the city. In the chapel of the Gatehouse, a quarantine and a church for the sick were improvised, and the infected were cared for by six servant monks―three volunteers and three randomly selected, with no survivors. To commemorate those events, the former Gatehouse was called the House of Plague and the chapel was called Plague Chapel.