The entrenchment is a monumental, two-storey edifice, made from red brick with masonry arcades, rustications and friezes and stone frames of windows and passages. Instead of a roof the building is covered with earth embankment and water is carried away from the building by means of stone gargoyles. The entrenchment was built between 1825 and 1830 in the gorge of Bastion No. 7. In times of peace the building housed barracks and during a siege it became a powerful battery emplacement with embrasures on both floors. Guns were additionally placed on the embankment on top of the entrenchment. Semicircular shape of the building (its concavity faces the bastion) made it possible for the garrison to concentrate the fire on the area in front of the fortress, which constituted the so-called “dead ground” before. The interior of the building on both floors is divided with a corridor into two rows of rooms.
At present the entrenchment houses several shops, a restaurant and an exhibition. The main gate of the entrenchment leads to the plateau of Bastion No. 7 and the guns placed there remind visitors about the military nature of the building.
The Underground Tourist Route leads along the firing galleries, casemates and secret passages under the curtain wall and the entrenchment (description under a bookmark entitled “Interesting places in Zamość”).
