Bardejov Town Conservation Reserve

Bardejov stands on a river terrace of the Topľa in north-eastern Slovakia, on a trade route across the Carpathians, and people have lived here since the Palaeolithic. The town first appears in writing in 1241, in an account of a journey from Hungary to Poland, by which time it seems to have existed for a while. Germans from Prešov settled here, and the town's position on the road to Poland made it the site of a customs post. The Hungarian king Charles Robert granted it an annual fair on 1 September, the feast of its patron saint, St Egidius.

In the mid-14th century King Louis I ordered the citizens to fortify the town, and a full circuit of walls with three gates and bastions was completed. More towers were added between 1420 and 1474, and in the early 16th century the bastions were modernised and a water-filled moat was dug. A monopoly on linen granted in 1455 made its merchants rich, and the town hall, built in 1505 to 1509, was the first building in Slovakia with Renaissance stone mouldings.

Unrest in the first half of the 16th century sent the town into decline, followed by a disastrous fire in 1686 and epidemics. Recovery came in the 18th century, when Slovaks and Hasidic Jews arrived in large numbers and a Jewish quarter with a synagogue and ritual baths grew up in the north-western suburbs. Bardejov was declared a town conservation reserve in 1950, restoration followed, and it was inscribed in 2000.