A drainage grate allows rain and melt water from streets and pavements to be collected at one point and then fed into the underground storm sewerage system. The presence of sewerage is inseparably connected to the operation of a water supply network. The beginnings of the modern water supply network in Kraków go back to 1901, and that network has been developed and modernised over the ensuing years to become the water supply network we have today. The comfort and quality of life of Kraków’s citizens was far worse before the network was built. Potable water could only be drawn from wells or rivers, and impurities and all liquid waste was discharged directly to open gutters that ran along the city’s streets.
The object presented here was made in one of Kraków’s cast-iron foundries on a commission by construction company run by Tadeusz Stryjeński, one of Kraków’s outstanding architects and heritage restorers. One of the things Stryjeński became famous for was being the first in Poland to use reinforced concrete in his designs.
Interesting fact: Drainage grates are usually made of cast-iron, i.e., a high carbon alloy of iron with carbon. The oldest traces of the use of cast iron by man come from China and are dated from the 5th century B.C. The material was most widely used in the 18th and 19th centuries in different areas of engineering, as a result of the booming development of industry.

References:
Tadeusz Stryjeński, Internetowy Słownik Biograficzny, https://www.ipsb.nina.gov.pl/a/biografia/tadeusz-stryjenski-1849-1943-architekt (Accessed: 10.05.2021).
R. Wierzbicki, Wodociągi Krakowa, Kraków 2011, book available in the Repository of the Technical University of Kraków at: https://suw.biblos.pk.edu.pl/viewResource&mId=444027 (Accessed: 9.05.2021).