Great Coastal Gate and Fat Margaret Tower

The Great Coastal Gate controlled the access to the town from the port side in mediaeval times. The first gates on Pikk street can be dated back to the 1300s. The artillery tower the Fat Margaret was added during a reconstruction in the early 16th century. This stout and round tower has a diameter of 25 metres, a height of about 20 metres, and walls up to 5 metres thick. The origins of Fat Margaret’s name are a mystery. One theory says it was named for one of its larger cannons and another that it was for a pump cook called Margaret who once worked here. The tower has served a number of different functions throughout its history. It has been used a storehouse for gunpowder and weapons, and as a prison.

Today the Fat Margaret is a part of the Estonian Maritime Museum and exhibits the story of Estonian seafaring from the medieval maritime trade to the modern cruise shipping. The star exhibit of the museum is the almost 20-metre long wreck of a cog. A cog is a medieval cargo vessel with one mast and high broadsides which was mainly used on the North and Baltic Seas. Finding of the cog underground in Tallinn in 2015 was rare in the entire Europe.