CASTLE IN NIEMODLIN, VIEW FROM THE NORTH

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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he ori­gins of the cas­tle in Nie­mod­lin, which is cur­rent­ly one of the largest and best pre­served me­dieval res­i­dences in the Opo­le re­gion, date back to the pe­ri­od be­fore 1228, that is be­fore han­dover the set­tle­ment by Ka­zi­mierz I (d. 1230) to Kle­mens Gry­fi­ta (d. 1241) as a com­pen­sa­tion for the fi­nan­cial ef­fort made by Gry­fi­ta while build­ing ducal res­i­dence in Opole. Its ap­pear­ance in the first half of the 13th cen­tu­ry, how­ev­er, did not re­sem­ble con­tem­po­rary build­ings. Ini­tially the fort­ress was on­ly a small tow­er of res­i­den­tial char­ac­ter, sur­round­ed by a moat and wood­en for­ti­fi­ca­tions. Sit­u­at­ed near the riv­er cross­ing, it served main­ly as a cen­tre of lo­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion and a toll col­lec­tion point on the trade route lead­ing from Si­le­sia to Mo­ra­via. In the vicin­i­ty of the tow­er there was a ducal vil­lage, lat­er be­long­ing to the Bene­dic­tine monastery in Sta­niąt­ki, first men­tioned in 1224 as Ne­mod­li­na vil­la. A fair set­tle­ment de­vel­oped from it, and then the town, which has been called Fal­ken­berg as a re­sult of the in­creas­ing num­ber of Ger­man set­tlers. Its lo­ca­tion, dat­ing back to the pe­ri­od be­tween 1260 and 1283, is con­nect­ed with the con­struc­tion of a sec­ond res­i­den­tial tow­er, erect­ed on the ini­tia­tive of Wła­dy­sław Opol­ski (d. 1281/82) on the site of an ear­li­er one. This in­vest­ment was prob­a­bly rel­ated with or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Cas­tel­lany of Nie­mod­lin, whose first ad­min­is­tra­tor was a cer­tain Syg­hard (1294).

NORTH-WEST ELEVATION OF THE CASTLE

IN THE CASTLE COURTYARD, 2020

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fter death of Bolesław I in 1313, his three sons Bo­le­sław (d. be­fore 1365), Bo­le­sław (d. 1356) and Al­bert (d. be­fore 1375) di­vid­ed the Opo­le dis­trict among them­selves, which led to sep­a­ra­tion of the small Duchy of Nie­mod­lin. It was tak­en o­ver by the old­est son, Bo­le­sław Pier­worod­ny (the First­born), hence­forth called Nie­mod­liń­ski. The town's grow­ing im­por­tance as the cap­i­tal of in­de­pen­dent state en­ti­ty was re­flect­ed in ex­pan­sion of the fort­ress, which was strength­ened by de­fen­sive wall and equipped with wood­en util­ity build­ings. When Bo­le­sław Pier­wo­rod­ny died, the duchy was suc­ceed­ed by his el­dest son Bo­le­sław II Nie­mod­liń­ski (d. 1368), and af­ter heir­less death, his younger broth­ers Wacław (d. 1369) and Hen­ryk (d. 1382) ruled o­ver these lands. Due to the fact that all sons of Bo­le­sław Pier­wo­rod­ny died with­out male off­spring, af­ter the ex­piry of Nie­mod­lin line of Piasts in 1382, the cas­tle and the duchy were tak­en o­ver by sons of the Opo­le duke Bol­ko III: Bol­ko IV (d. 1437), Hen­ryk (d. 1394) and Ber­nard (d. 1455). The last of these, in 1399, as an in­de­pen­dent ruler of this land, he merged it with Strzel­ce Opol­skie to cre­ate a sovereign state, which end­ed in 1460, on­ly a few years af­ter death of its founder. Ear­li­er, how­ev­er, dur­ing the Hus­site wars in the 1420s, the town and the cas­tle were in­vad­ed and then de­stroyed by Czech troops, go­ing through Nie­mod­lin to Brzeg. As ear­ly as in the first half of 15th cen­tu­ry, the fort­ress was re­built and per­haps even mod­ern­ized. How­ev­er, it was prob­a­bly no longer a cen­tre of pow­er, but was still used as a seat of lo­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion.

AERIAL VIEW FROM THE NORTH-WEST

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n 1450, o­ver 70-year-old Ber­nard, who had no male de­scen­dant, hand­ed o­ver the Nie­mod­lin part of duchy to Bol­ko V Wo­ło­szek (d. 1460), son-in-law of the Pol­ish Queen El­żbie­ta Gra­now­ska. He and his wife Jad­wi­ga Bies al­so did not have a son, as a re­sult of which af­ter Bol­ko's death the dis­trict of Nie­mod­lin be­came prop­er­ty of the Dukes of Opo­le, who from that time on used the ti­tle: Lord of Nie­mod­lin. Such a state of af­fairs last­ed un­til 1532, when, af­ter the heir­less death of the last Opo­le-Ra­ci­bórz Piast Jan II Do­bry (John II The Good) the duchy came un­der the power of Czech King Fer­di­nand I Hab­sburg (d. 1564). Soon this ruler leased the cas­tle to Bran­den­burg Mar­grave Georg Ho­hen­zol­lern-Ans­bach (d. 1543), nephew of Pol­ish King Zyg­munt Sta­ry (Si­gis­mund the Old), and then to his mi­nor son Georg Frie­drich (d. 1603). In 1551, as a com­pen­sa­tion for re­lin­quish­ing claims to the Hun­gar­i­an throne, the Duchy of Opo­le, to­geth­er with the ti­tle of Duke of the Reich and an an­nu­al salary of 25 thou­sand flor­ins, re­ceived Queen Re­gent Iza­be­la Ja­giel­lon­ka (d. 1559) and her son Jan Zyg­munt (d. 1571). How­ev­er, they did not come to Nie­mod­lin, and on their be­half the ad­min­is­tra­tive au­thor­i­ty was held here by Wen­zel Pück­ler, who may have wit­nessed the great fire of the town in 1552, which de­stroyed part of the build­ings and se­ri­ous­ly dam­aged the cas­tle walls and its equip­ment.

THE OLDEST KNOWN IMAGE OF THE CASTLE, VIEW FROM THE SOUTHEAST
CH. GLAUBITZ GESCHICHTE DER HERRSCHAFT FALKENBERG IN OBERSCHLIESEN, 1734

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hen Isa­be­la Ja­giel­lon­ka left in 1557, the half-burnt ru­in was pledged to Count Math­es von Lo­gau, Chan­cel­lor of the Ny­sa Bish­opric, and af­ter his death in 1567, it was placed in the hands of his son Hen­rik. A year lat­er, how­ev­er, his fa­ther's con­tract with the late Em­per­or Fer­di­nand Hab­s­burg ex­pired, and the town of Nie­mod­lin it­self ap­plied to the in­cum­bent Em­per­or Max­i­m­il­ian (d. 1576) to take o­ver the pledge, even­tu­al­ly re­ceiv­ing it. The town coun­cil ad­min­is­tered the cas­tle for on­ly four years, af­ter which in 1572 Cas­par Püc­kler von Gro­ditz (d. 1584) took o­ver the Nie­mod­lin es­tate, pay­ing a huge sum of 32 thou­sand thalers for a 22-year lease. This amount in­clud­ed a 'dis­count' of 6200 thalers, which the pur­chas­er re­ceived from Em­per­or due to planned cost of the cas­tle re­con­struc­tion, since by de­ci­sion of Em­per­or's ex­pert, the build­ing was wild and bad­ly built, and the old tow­er was an use­less heap of stones. In 1581 he de­cid­ed to buy the sub­leased prop­er­ty, and then to­geth­er with his son Balt­haz­ar (d. 1591) and his wife Polix­e­na Nech­er von Buch­wald (d. 1609) es­tab­lished the pri­vate state of Nie­mod­lin (Herr­schaft Fal­ken­berg). As a hered­i­tary lord, Balt­haz­ar start­ed to re­build the Goth­ic cas­tle in­to a Re­nais­sance style. For that pur­pose, he hired mas­ters Ja­kob West­phal and Hans Cz­erre, un­der whose su­per­vi­sion the build­ing re­ceived a new north-west­ern wing with gate tow­er, wind­ing stair­case and brick kitchen, as well as three-storey clois­ters. Its south-west­ern wing was al­so mod­ernised, and de­fence sys­tem has been enriched with bas­tion and moat, where up to three hun­dred three-year-old carp are kept and over­win­tered an­nu­al­ly.

THE TOWN AND THE CASTLE IN THE MIDDLE OF XVIII CENTURY, F. B. WEHRNER TOPOGRAPHIA SEU COMPENDIUM SILESIAE 1744-68

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al­thasar Pück­ler did not see the end of con­struc­tion work as he died on 14 Au­gust 1591. The in­vest­ment was con­tin­ued by his son-in-law Weig­hardt Prom­nitz (d. 1618), thanks to whose ef­forts the cas­tle was en­larged by two more wings and four tur­rets with stair­cas­es, re­sult­ing in the form of an el­e­gant quadri­lat­er­al with a Re­nais­sance ar­cade court­yard. How­ev­er, this stylish ap­pear­ance did not de­prive the cas­tle its de­fen­sive ca­pa­bil­i­ties. It was pro­tect­ed by a moat re­in­forced with stones and a cur­tain wall with bas­tions, and the con­stant pres­ence of its crew at the be­gin­ning of 17th cen­tu­ry was to be proved by mili­tary equip­ment for 23 in­fantry and 22 cav­al­ry­men, list­ed in the in­ven­to­ry from 1618. The ex­pen­di­ture on ex­pan­sion and fur­nish­ing of the palace ap­par­ent­ly ex­ceed­ed own­ers' fi­nan­cial pos­si­bil­i­ties, since at the time of Weig­hardt's death the es­tate was in­debt­ed to the amount of 177 thou­sand thalers. Some of these re­ceiv­ables re­sult­ed from his obli­ga­tions to Ernst Pos­er, who in ex­change for un­paid debts con­clud­ed a tem­po­rary lease agree­ment with care­tak­ers of Sey­fried, son of Weig­hardt, and hold the cas­tle un­til his death in 1624. At that time, he was sup­posed to run a rob­bery econ­o­my, not car­ing about the state of prop­er­ty. As­sa­man Nos­tiz, the in­her­i­tor of Ernst, con­tin­ued his rule in Nie­mod­lin un­til 22 April 1648, when, with the sup­port of the lo­cal in­hab­i­tants and Opo­le mi­li­tia, the cas­tle was tak­en o­ver by force by Sey­fried Prom­nitz. When Sey­fried died with­out an heir­loom in 1650, the town and the cas­tle once again be­came the sub­ject of dis­putes and lit­i­ga­tion be­tween the heirs of the Po­sers and the heirs of the Prom­nitz fam­i­ly. Un­reg­u­lat­ed le­gal sta­tus of res­i­dence, but al­so the re­cent­ly end­ed Thir­ty Years' War and the ac­com­pa­ny­ing mil­i­tary march­es, req­ui­si­tions and fires made the cas­tle in need of ur­gent and far-reach­ing ren­o­va­tions. Apart from the in­fras­truc­ture dam­age, valu­able cas­tle equip­ment was al­so de­stroyed or stolen.

F. PAZELT'S LITHOGRAPH WITH VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM THE NORTH, 2ND HALF OF THE XIX CENTURY

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n year 1650, the Nie­mod­lin es­tate was tak­en o­ver by Sey­fried Prom­nitz's cousin and Balt­haz­ar Pück­ler's grand­son Ber­nard von Zie­ro­tin (d. 1655). Af­ter his death, the prop­er­ty was hand­ed o­ver to his son, Sieg­fried Erd­mann, who, hav­ing reached the age of ma­jor­i­ty, made an at­tempt to raise the fam­i­ly head­quar­ters from the fall. How­ev­er, scope of work car­ried out on his ini­tia­tive was quite lim­it­ed and in­clud­ed, above all, ren­o­va­tion of in­te­ri­ors and new dec­o­ra­tions in the ear­ly Ba­roque style. With Sieg­fried's death in 1708, a court dis­pute arose be­tween his heirs, which end­ed by hand­ing o­ver Nie­mod­lin to his youngest son, Franz Lud­wig (d. 1731), who since 1716 has held the ti­tle of Lord on Nie­mod­lin and Tu­ło­wi­ce and Va­lašské Me­ziřice, Kras­na and Rož­nov un­der Rad­hoštĕm in Mo­ra­via. Franz chose Valašské Me­ziřici as the main seat of the fam­i­ly, where his work was the Baroque re­con­struc­tion of the lo­cal old cas­tle. He did not pay much at­ten­tion to main­te­nance of Si­le­sian res­i­dences, as ev­i­denced, among oth­er things, by the fact that some rooms of Tu­ło­wi­ce palace were used to store grain. In 1731 the Nie­mod­lin-Tu­ło­wi­ce part of es­tate was in­her­it­ed by Franz Lud­wig's younger son, Mi­chael von Zie­ro­tin (d. 1779). Tech­ni­cal con­di­tion of the cas­tle was not so good at that time, as its man­agers de­scribed the bridge as very un­cer­tain, sug­gest­ing an in­dis­pens­able, nec­es­sary ren­o­va­tion. It is very pos­si­ble that in the mid­dle of 18th cen­tu­ry it was on Mi­chael's ini­tia­tive that the res­i­dence re­ceived mansard roofs, baroque win­dow and gable dec­o­ra­tions, as well as new ar­cade bridge with baroque sculp­tures of saints, while the park was en­riched with stylish pavil­ions and or­angery. We al­so owe to him the cre­ation of so-called Gold­en Book of Nie­mod­lin-Tu­ło­wi­ce as­sets - a list of prop­er­ties pre­pared in 1734 by Chris­toph Glaub­itz, with a reg­is­ter of res­i­dents, de­tailed field maps and plans, as well as the old­est icono­graph­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the cas­tle. In 1755, af­ter the heir­less death of his old­er broth­er Franz, Mi­chael von Zie­ro­tin in­cor­po­rat­ed the Mo­ra­vian es­tates in­to his Si­le­sian her­itage and man­aged them un­til his death in 1779.

VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM THE NORTH-WEST ON DRAWING BY G. RASEL

COLOURED POSTCARD FROM AROUND 1900

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ince Michael von Zierotin re­mained a bach­e­lor un­til the end of his life, he made a cousin, Lud­wig An­ton von Zie­ro­tin (d. 1817), heir to the Mo­ra­vian es­tate. The heir to the Si­le­sian part was his moth­er's nephew, Jo­hann Ne­po­muk Carl Praschma (d. 1822), a lover of lit­er­a­ture and mu­sic, who gath­ered large li­brary in the cas­tle of Niemod­lin, or­gan­ised the­atre per­for­mances here and main­tained a court band. In 1787, on his ini­tia­tive, an­oth­er re­con­struc­tion of the cas­tle com­plex be­gan, as a re­sult of which, un­der su­per­vi­sion of the ar­chi­tect named Steglich, some of Re­nais­sance clois­ters and dec­o­ra­tive at­tics were re­moved. In Lip­no, 3 kilo­me­tres away, Jo­hann Ne­po­muk has al­so es­tab­lished a land­scape park with botan­i­cal gar­den, var­ied by leisure pavil­ions and ro­man­tic park ar­chi­tec­ture. The work start­ed by fa­ther was con­tin­ued af­ter his death by son, Frie­drich I Praschma (d. 1860), a vet­er­an of Na­po­le­on­ic Wars and an ea­ger sub­ject of the Prus­sian King Frie­drich Wil­helm IV, whom he per­son­al­ly host­ed in 1846 at the cas­tle in Nie­mod­lin. He com­plet­ed re­con­struc­tion of the cas­tle court­yard. Al­so on his ini­tia­tive, in the first half of nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, the res­i­dence was sur­round­ed by a small En­glish-style park, par­tial­ly ar­ranged on site of me­dieval moats. The heir of Frie­drich I was Frie­drich II Wil­helm Prasch­ma (d. 1909), a par­tic­i­pant in the wars with Den­mark, Aus­tria and France, where he ac­tive­ly en­gaged in samar­i­tan ser­vices. The cas­tle owes him a num­ber of ren­o­va­tion works com­bined with neo-Goth­ic re­con­struc­tion, which was car­ried out in 1869-73 un­der su­per­vi­sion of Dres­den ar­chi­tect Karl Pieper and dec­o­ra­tor Hein­rich Com­mans from Düssel­dorf.

THE CASTLE COURTYARD IN THE 1920S AND NOWADAYS (2020)

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fter death of Friedrich II in 1909, the el­dest of his ten chil­dren, Jo­han­nes Prasch­ma (d. 1935), be­came the next heir of fam­i­ly for­tune. He ini­tial­ly lived with his fam­i­ly in Ro­gi palace, but in 1916 moved to Nie­mod­lin and soon af­ter­wards com­mis­sioned an­oth­er mod­erni­sa­tion of the cas­tle. Its main goal was to aban­don the al­ready un­fash­ion­able neo-Goth­ic form in favour of a style based on neo-Re­nais­sance and neo-Baroque mo­tifs, and it was car­ried out un­der strict con­ser­va­tion su­per­vi­sion of ar­chi­tects Karl Gross­er and Hum­bert Walch­er, co-au­thor of re­build­ing of Książ cas­tle. Aes­thet­ic changes of the build­ing were ac­com­pa­nied by in­tro­duc­tion of tech­ni­cal in­no­va­tions such as elec­tric­i­ty and cen­tral heat­ing; as well as long-await­ed wa­ter­works, which had not been in­stalled here be­fore. Frie­drich III Le­o­pold Praschma (d. 2000), the last pre-war own­er of the cas­tle, tried to con­tin­ue his fa­ther's restora­tion pro­ject. His reign last­ed on­ly a decade, of which he spent a few years in Ger­man army, vis­it­ing Niemod­lin on­ly dur­ing his hol­i­days. In this sit­u­a­tion, the ma­jor­i­ty of cur­rent mat­ters re­lat­ed to prop­er­ty man­age­ment and pro­tec­tion against ad­min­is­tra­tive de­ci­sions were han­dled by his wife, So­phie zu Ho­h­elo­he-Schil­lings­fürst (d. 1981). Al­though she suc­ceed­ed in pre­vent­ing de­mo­li­tion of gate build­ing and the south­ern wall, planned at the end of 1941 due to the idea of widen­ing the main com­mu­ni­ca­tion road, the fol­low­ing year she had to hand o­ver the 16th-cen­tu­ry cas­tle bells, con­fis­cat­ed by Nazi au­thor­i­ties for war pur­pos­es. Af­ter the Al­lied air raids on Ger­many's largest cities be­gan, places for var­i­ous in­sti­tu­tions and or­gan­i­sa­tions were ur­gent­ly sought in small­er cen­tres such as Nie­mod­lin. So here, in March 1944, in sev­er­al cas­tle rooms, chests be­long­ing to the State Ar­chives were placed, and half a year lat­er, more rooms were adapt­ed for the needs of the I.G. Far­benin­dus­trie con­cern, which used the slave la­bor of con­cen­tra­tion camp pris­on­ers.

CASTLE FROM THE WEST, 1930S

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em­bers of the Praschma fam­i­ly left Niemod­lin in Jan­uary 1945 and nev­er re­turned, set­tling in Ka­pel­len near Düssel­dorf. Af­ter the Red Army en­tered the town, the cas­tle was oc­cu­pied for a short time by the war com­mand and mil­i­tary hos­pi­tal, so that af­ter the front was gone, the lo­cal mil­it­siya found its head­quar­ters here. In farm build­ings, the of­fices of Dis­trict Land Ad­min­is­tra­tion have been ar­ranged, which was re­spon­si­ble for "ad­min­is­ter­ing" the for­mer Ger­man land es­tates and their equip­ment, of­ten com­ing from Si­le­sian pa­laces and manors. In win­ter of 1946, the build­ing housed a gym­na­si­um, lat­er trans­formed in­to a high school. The cas­tle cham­bers served as class­rooms and apart­ments for teach­ers, rooms for stu­dents were placed in the out­house, and the gym hall was adapt­ed in the build­ing of ...for­mer sta­ble. In the ear­ly 1960s, the build­ing need­ed ur­gent ren­o­va­tion, but the lack of funds lim­it­ed main­te­nance work to nec­es­sary re­pair of the fa­cade and plas­ter. In 1971, for se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons, the high school was moved to new lo­ca­tion, and the cas­tle was hand­ed o­ver to lo­cal cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions and to pri­ma­ry school (de­spite the risk of con­struc­tion dis­as­ter!). How­ev­er, as ear­ly as in 1978, it be­came the prop­er­ty of Pen­i­ten­tiary Board, which was plan­ning to adapt the build­ing for the school of prison staff. The on­ly ben­e­fit for the cas­tle in this sit­u­a­tion was the roof ren­o­va­tion, which has been car­ried out in the 1980s. - no school was opened here and un­til the fall of com­mu­nism the build­ing was aban­doned. In 1990, it was bought by pri­vate in­vestor, start­ing its ren­o­va­tion, which is go­ing on (with breaks) to this day. In 2006, the res­i­dence was owned by In­sti­tute of Cre­ative Work, in 2014-15 it be­longed to the Ital­ian Count (?) de Rav­i­g­nani, and fi­nal­ly was hand­ed o­ver to Cen­trum com­pa­ny.

CASTLE IN NIEMODLIN, 2020

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

THE CASTLE IN A NIEMODLIN, THE GROUND FLOOR LAYOUT - THE OLDEST, XV-CENTURY CASTLE WALLS ARE MARKED IN BLACK:
1. TOWER WITH ENTRANCE TO COURTYARD, 2. NORTH-WEST WING, 3. SOUTH-WEST WING, 4. CHAPEL, 5. TOWERS - STAIRCASES, 6. CLOISTERS

NORTHWESTERN FACADE OF THE CASTLE WITH THE GATE TOWER, DRAWING BY O. E. NOETTNER (1913)

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he cas­tle rep­re­sents a type of low­land, quadri­lat­er­al res­i­dence with an in­ner court­yard, con­sist­ing of three high wings and low­er south-east­ern build­ing. The old­est part is here the 15th cen­tu­ry south-west­ern wing, whose façade was main­ly ar­chi­tec­tural­ly formed in the ear­ly 17th cen­tu­ry. Its aus­tere, nine-ax­is front is dec­o­rat­ed with Baroque win­dows and ter­race stair­case that gen­tly goes down to the gar­den, while the in­te­ri­ors hide vault­ed cel­lars and al­so vault­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive hall on the ground floor, prob­a­bly formed in place of the Goth­ic Grand Hall. The bar­rel vaults can be found in the base­ments of the north-east­ern wing as well, where Jo­hann Ne­po­muk Carl Praschma and his wife Mar­ian­ne rest­ed in tomb crypts. Above them ris­es a 17th cen­tu­ry chapel, whose con­tem­po­rary neo-Goth­ic ar­chi­tec­tural form re­sulted from re­con­struc­tion car­ried out by Karl Pi­per in the 1870s. In its west­ern bay there is brick mu­sic choir, and the walls are var­ied by neo-Goth­ic se­mi-columns with unique heads dec­o­rat­ed with plant mo­tifs. The oth­er rooms in the cas­tle are char­ac­terised by ar­chi­tec­tural so­lu­tions and dec­o­ra­tions typ­i­cal for lat­er pe­ri­ods: Baroque, Clas­si­cism and Neo-Goth­ic. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween them on in­di­vid­u­al floors is en­sured by vault­ed clois­ters, whose ar­cade open­ings were part­ly bricked up in the 19th cen­tu­ry and coloured glass win­dows were placed in them. In their orig­i­nal form, the clois­ters have been pre­served on­ly in the ground floor of the north-west­ern and north-east­ern wing (the chapel). Ver­ti­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tion is car­ried out by four cor­ner tur­rets with wind­ing stairs.

NORTH-EASTERN WING WITH CASTLE CHAPEL

GARDEN TERRACE IN THE SOUTH-WESTERN PART OF THE CASTLE

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orth-west­ern fa­cade of the cas­tle is ac­cen­tu­at­ed by tall tow­er pro­trud­ing be­yond its face, with gate­way lead­ing di­rect­ly to the court­yard. It is a five-storey build­ing, in the low­er part erect­ed on square plan, high­er oc­tag­o­nal, topped with gal­lery and a Re­nais­sance hel­met. A car­touche with the Praschma's coat of arms was built in­to the tow­er's el­e­va­tion, slight­ly above the mod­est por­tal, and the clock was in­stalled in its high­est part (on­ly its relics are left). Be­tween them there were two small win­dows and the shoot­ing hole - proof that Re­nais­sance trans­for­ma­tion of the cas­tle was done with view to main­tain­ing its de­fen­sive func­tions. The bridge from the mid-18th cen­tu­ry leads to the gate, for­mer­ly passed above a cas­tle moat. It is flanked on both sides by four Baroque fig­ures of saints: Flo­ri­an - pa­tron of fire­men, An­to­ni of Pad­ua - pro­tec­tor of mar­riages and trav­el guard, Ne­po­mu­cen - pa­tron of bridges and fi­nal­ly Ve­ne­lin, guardian of shep­herds and farm­ers, de­pict­ed here as a young man with curly hair and a lit­tle lamb hug­ging him. The res­i­dence is sur­round­ed by small cas­tle park, es­tab­lished in the 19th cen­tu­ry on the area of the 17th cen­tu­ry gar­den, and on the site of buried me­dieval moats. Many of spec­i­mens grow­ing here are o­ver an age-old trees, of which the most valu­able, due to their met­ric, size and aes­thet­ic val­ues, are the near­ly 170-year-old Leopold oak and 400-year-old yew Iwo.

BAROQUE SCULPTURES ON THE CASTLE BRIDGE, ST. ANTONI AND ST. NEPOMUCEN
BELOW: ST. VENELIN AND ST. FLORIAN

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n west­ern and north-west­ern part of the cas­tle there was a large bai­ley, which has been lat­er trans­formed in­to a grange with two court­yards, sep­a­rat­ed in the 17th cen­tu­ry by mag­nif­i­cent out­house. This two-storey build­ing, sup­port­ed by butress­es, on the ground floor housed rooms of the of­fi­cials man­ag­ing the Niemod­lin es­tate, while its floor served as quar­ters for low­er-lev­el of­fi­cials and ser­vants. In the 18th cen­tu­ry part of the build­ing was oc­cu­pied by bur­graves and land writ­ers, lat­er troops of var­i­ous armies were sta­tioned there, and not long ago a bustling life of stu­dents took place here. The sig­nif­i­cant func­tion of the out­house in the past is ev­i­denced by de­tails and el­e­ments of dec­o­ra­tion pre­served to our times, in­clud­ing the en­trance por­tal with cor­nice and columns, dec­o­ra­tive tops or wood­en ceil­ings or­na­ment­ed with col­or­ful poly­chrome. In its east­ern sec­tion there is the gate­way lead­ing to for­mer north­ern court­yard, whose strict­ly eco­nom­ic char­ac­ter was em­pha­sized by small­er build­ings of var­i­ous pur­pos­es (brew­ery, dis­tillery, slaugh­ter­house, etc.). A slight­ly dif­fer­ent, more so­phis­ti­cat­ed style char­ac­ter­ized the space around hon­orary court­yard, lo­cat­ed in the south­ern part of the bai­ley. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive drive­way to the cas­tle was lead­ing here, start­ing from the el­e­gant gate build­ing with dec­o­ra­tive por­tals and the round tow­er equipped with stair­case. The court­yard is closed from the west and from the east by old farm build­ings (guard's quar­ters, sta­bles, coach hous­es, garages) dec­o­rat­ed with basalt stone and clink­er brick, and the whole is com­plet­ed from the north by pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned manor out­house. The gate­way was in­te­grat­ed in­to the stone and brick wall, the re­mains of which were pre­served at en­trance to the mar­ket square.

(UNREALIZED) PROJECT OF GATE BUILDING RECONSTRUCTION, 1862

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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ev­er­al decades of post-war stag­na­tion, fol­lowed by of­ten chang­ing pri­vate own­ers, made the cas­tle, al­though al­most com­plete, re­quir­ing ur­gent in­vest­ment. There are some win­dow stone­ma­son­ry and por­tals pre­served from its for­mer ar­chi­tec­tural or­na­ment, and some of the in­te­ri­or dec­o­ra­tions (stuc­co, Re­nais­sance fire­place, vault or­na­ments), as well as frag­ments of sgraf­fite dec­o­ra­tions, un­for­tu­nate­ly large­ly erased by the time and na­ture. The lack of prop­er care of the build­ing has par­tic­u­lar­ly severe­ly af­fect­ed the con­di­tion of the gar­den ter­race and the sta­bil­i­ty of the cas­tle ceil­ings, which par­tial­ly col­lapsed. De­spite the neg­li­gence vis­i­ble at ev­ery turn, let's just hope that thanks to the en­gage­ment of new own­er, the cas­tle with its clos­est sur­round­ings will re­gain at least part of its pre-war charm. The first sig­nif­i­cant step to­wards this goal was, co-fi­nanced by the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Na­tion­al Her­itage, re­place­ment of roof cov­er­ing, con­sist­ing of 120 thou­sand tiles. The near­est plans are al­so to re­place the wood­work, in­clud­ing all win­dows, and to ren­o­vate the fa­cade.

VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM THE SOUTH

RENAISSANCE PORTAL AND STONE BENCHES AT ENTRANCE TO THE CASTLE COURTYARD

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he cas­tle is open for tourists. Ac­com­pa­nied by guide, vis­i­tors can ex­plore the neo-Goth­ic chapel with 19th cen­tu­ry paint­ing dec­o­ra­tions and rem­nants of the orig­i­nal equip­ment: wood­en spi­ral stairs, stone bap­tismal font and epi­taphs com­mem­o­rat­ing for­mer own­ers of Niemod­lin. Large cas­tle cel­lars con­tain the grave crypt, where the bod­ies of Jo­hann Ne­po­muk Carl Praschma and his wife Mar­i­an­na are buried in con­crete sar­copha­gi. Ex­hi­bi­tion of 18th-20th cen­tu­ry icons, com­ing from Rus­sia, Greece and the Bal­kans, is al­so or­ga­nized here. In the oth­er part of the cel­lars there is an ex­e­cu­tion­er's work­shop, or rather a con­tem­po­rary in­ter­pre­ta­tion of for­mer tor­ture cham­ber as well as place called the win­ery. The liv­ing ar­eas are rep­re­sent­ed, among oth­ers, by stylish rooms of the south­west­ern wing, in­clud­ing pa­rade neo-Goth­ic lounge and the white lounge, un­for­tu­nate­ly re­quir­ing ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion - oth­er­wise it will col­lapse. Leav­ing the cas­tle walls it is worth to stop by the bridge o­ver the for­mer moat. For sev­er­al cen­turies, there have been four saints stand­ing here at the post: Flo­rian, Ne­po­mu­cen, An­to­ni and Ve­ne­lin, which are one of the most valu­able baroque park sculp­tures in Si­le­sia. Fi­nal­ly, I should men­tion the fal­low deer liv­ing half-wild in the sur­round­ing park, whose pres­ence here is a ref­er­ence to the tra­di­tion of pre-war cas­tle me­na­gerie.

NEO-GOTHIC CHAPEL IN THE NORTHEAST WING

IN CASTLE CELLARS

To visit the castle, you need to buy a ticket. Entrance to the courtyards and the castle park is also paid.

Pho­tog­ra­phy for non-com­mer­cial pur­pos­es is free.

Dogs are not allowed in the castle (including the castle park).

A YOUNG FALLOW DEER POSING ON THE BACKGROUND OF THE CASTLE CHAPEL

HOW TO GET THERE?

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he castle is located in the north­east­ern part of the old town, near the na­tio­nal road no. 46 leading from Opo­le to Ny­sa. The best way to park your car is at the Mar­ket Square (Ry­nek), a few dozen met­ers from the en­trance gate.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. F. Idzikowski: Opole - dzieje miasta do 1886 roku, Opole 2002
2. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
3. W. Kawka: Murowane wieże na zamkach księstwa opolsko-raciborskiego..., UJ 2014
4. A. Paszkowska-Witkowska: Zamek w Niemodlinie - dzieje i architektura, NTR 2018
5. A. Wagner: Murowane budowle obronne w Polsce X-XVIIw., Bellona 2019
6. advertising brochures issued by Niemodlin castle

Castles nearby:
Tułowice - neo-Renaissance palace from 19th century (former medieval knight's castle), 6 km
Dąbrowa - Renaissance noble castle from 17th century, 12 km
Kantorowice - ducal castle from 16th/17th century, 16 km
Opole Ostrówek - Piast Tower from 13th century, 25 km
Prószków - castle from 16th century, 25 km
Opole Górka - relics of ducal castle from 14th century, 26 km
Chrzelice - ruins of ducal castle from 14th century, 29 km
Moszna - eclectic palace from 19th century, 32 km
Krapkowice - castle of the nobility from 17th century, 38 km
Krapkowice Otmęt - ruins of knight's castle from 14th/16th century, 39 km
Przeworno - Renaissance castle from 16th century, 39 km

text: 2020
photographs: 2020
© Jacek Bednarek