The Alexander Nevsky Monastery was established by Peter the Great in the 1710s, marking the site where he believed Alexander Nevsky had defeated the Swedes at the Battle of the Neva in 1240. The space between the monastery and the route of Nevsky Prospekt remained largely undeveloped during the seventeenth century, with the boundary marked only with a wooden fence and a wooden bell tower built in 1754 on the edge of what later became Alexander Nevsky Square. By the late seventeenth century the houses of Nevsky Prospekt had begun to encroach on this space. While Empress Elizabeth I had patronized the Smolny Convent, the accession of Empress Catherine II brought a renewed interest in completing the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.