A three-aisled basilica fashioned from huge chunks of limestone, the imposing Niguliste Church (St Nicholas’s) was built by Westphalian merchants in the thirteenth century, although most of what can be seen today dates from the fifteenth – especially the apse and the sturdy tower, built with defence in mind.

Extensively restored following Soviet bombing raids at the end of World War II, it’s now a museum, gathering together the surviving crop of Tallinn’s medieval artworks – most of which perished in the Protestant riots of September 1524. St Nicholas’s itself was saved from a thorough ransacking by the quick-thinking of the warden, who – so the story goes – poured lead in the locks to prevent the raiders from gaining access.

Gothic altarpieces

Standing out among a clutch of Gothic altarpieces is a spectacular double-winged altar by Herman Rode of Lübeck from 1481, in which scenes featuring the life of St Nicholas figure prominently, although St George is also shown effortlessly skewering a dragon on one panel, and getting his head chopped off in another.