RUIN OF THE DUCAL CASTLE IN ŚWIECIE, VIEW FROM THE NORTH

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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he brick cas­tle in Świecie was prob­a­bly built by Duke Ber­nard of Świd­ni­ca-Ja­wor (d. 1326) or his younger broth­er Hen­ry I (d. 1346). The old­est pre­served doc­u­ments con­cern­ing the strong­hold date back to 1329, when it, then called cas­trum Swe­ta, served as one of the el­e­ments of the de­fence sys­tem pro­tect­ing the south-west­ern bor­der­lands of Si­le­sia against Czech in­va­sions and guard­ing the trade route lead­ing from Lu­sa­tia to Je­le­nia Gó­ra. In 1337, fol­low­ing an agree­ment with King John of Lux­em­burg (Jo­hann von Lux­em­burg, d. 1346), Duke Hen­ry I ced­ed to him part of the Lu­sa­tian dis­trict in­clud­ing the cas­tle, re­ceiv­ing in re­turn the right to rule the Duchy of Gło­gów for life. Un­der Czech rule, Świe­cie lost its po­si­tion, first­ly strate­gi­cal­ly (as it was no longer a bor­der cas­tle), and short­ly af­ter­wards al­so eco­nom­i­cal­ly, when the road lead­ing near it was down­grad­ed to a sec­ondary route (its func­tions were tak­en o­ver by Via Re­gia - the roy­al route run­ning through Zgo­rze­lec).

BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE RUINS FROM THE SOUTHWEST

IN FRONT OF THE ENTRANCE GATE

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n the sec­ond half of the 14th cen­tu­ry Świe­cie came in­to the pos­ses­sion of Bo­hemi­an knight­ly fam­i­lies. From 1385 it be­longed to Hein­rich von Uech­tritz (d. ca. 1427) and from then un­til 1638 it served as the seat of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous lines of this no­ble fam­i­ly. A fire broke out in the cas­tle at East­er 1527, de­stroy­ing the en­tire ar­chive, a mill and a near­by tav­ern, while the own­er Ka­ther­ine von Uech­tritz and her chil­dren mirac­u­lous­ly es­caped death by flames. Short­ly af­ter this dra­mat­ic event, the strong­hold was re­built and its walls mod­ernised to en­able ac­tive ar­til­le­ry de­fence.

RESIDENTIAL TOWER, VIEW FROM THE EAST

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f­ter 1638 the cas­tle be­longed to the von Meur­er fam­i­ly, and in 1665 it passed to a cer­tain Da­niel von Lö­ben. He was suc­ceed­ed by Fer­di­nand Adolph (d. 1705), and then by Jo­hanne Vic­to­rie Tu­gen­dre­ich von Lö­ben (d. 1747), wife of the Duke of Cour­land Mau­rice de Saxe (d. 1750), who (she) in 1719 sold Świe­cie and the sur­round­ing lands to the Roy­al Mar­shal Ja­kob Hein­rich Flem­ming (d. 1728). Around this time, the cas­tle burst in­to flames again. Dur­ing its re­pair, a com­fort­able Baroque ma­nor house was erect­ed in the east­ern part of the court­yard, which rad­i­cal­ly changed the char­ac­ter of the en­tire build­ing.

THE CASTLE AND BAROQUE MANOR HOUSE ON A POSTCARD FROM THE 1920S

THE MANOR HOUSE IS NOW A COMPLETE RUIN

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n 1725, Jakob Flem­ming sold Świecie to the Pol­ish-Sax­on min­is­ter Jan Ka­zi­mierz Ray­sky. How­ev­er, the lat­ter lost it just four years lat­er to King Au­gust II the Strong (d. 1733), who soon af­ter­wards gave these lands for 52,000 thalers to Wolf Adolph von Gers­dorff (d. 1749), a Sax­on gen­er­al. Af­ter the gen­er­al's death, the lo­cal es­tate was in­her­it­ed by his mi­nor nephew Adolph Tru­gott von Gers­dorff (d. 1809), a fu­ture phi­lan­thropist, nat­u­ral­ist and sci­en­tist deal­ing with phe­nom­e­na of at­mo­spher­ic elec­tric­i­ty. He did not live in the cas­tle, of course, but in the fam­i­ly es­tate of Ren­gens­dorff and lat­er in the beau­ti­ful palace in Po­bied­na. By this time, tech­ni­cal con­di­tion of the me­dieval strong­hold was so bad that it was aban­doned around 1760.

TURRET IN THE EASTERN PART OF THE CASTLE, AS IT STOOD IN THE 1930S AND TODAY (2022)

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n 1827, a fire broke out at the cas­tle, ir­re­versibly turn­ing it in­to a ru­in. At the be­gin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry, it was pur­chased by Ernst Güt­schow (d. 1946), a wealthy in­dus­tri­al­ist and own­er of the Czo­cha es­tate. He planned to re­con­struct the for­mer ducal strong­hold, but even­tu­al­ly aban­doned this idea, fo­cus­ing his ef­forts on a ma­jor re­build­ing of Czo­cha cas­tle, in which he used, among oth­ers, orig­i­nal stone­work from Świe­cie cas­tle. To some ex­tent, how­ev­er, Güt­schow con­tribut­ed to the par­tial 're­vival' of the ru­ins by or­gan­is­ing a small inn in the manor house.

THE CASTLE ON OLD GERMAN POSTCARDS

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he cas­tle suf­fered no dam­age dur­ing the Sec­ond World War and the east­ern part of the manor house was still hab­it­able. On­ly lat­er, un­der the ad­min­is­tra­tion of state in­sti­tu­tions, did it fall in­to ne­glect and grad­u­al­ly de­te­ri­o­rate o­ver time. In 2002, the ru­in passed in­to pri­vate hands and since then work has been car­ried out to re­vi­talise it.

CASTLE COURTYARD IN 2004 (PHOTO ABOVE) AND IN 2022

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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he cas­tle has a plan sim­i­lar to an oval, cor­re­spond­ing to the shape of the hill on which it was built. Its bulk is dom­i­nat­ed by a four-storey stone res­i­den­tial tow­er mea­sur­ing 27 me­tres in length and 11 me­tres in width, with a small ir­reg­u­lar court­yard in the east­ern part. The two low­er storeys of the tow­er had bar­rel vaults, while the rooms above were cov­ered with wood­en ceil­ings. Light ac­cess to the in­te­ri­ors was pro­vid­ed by win­dows of vary­ing pro­por­tions: rect­an­gu­lar and point­ed.

RESIDENTIAL TOWER, VIEW FROM THE NORTH

INSIDE THE TOWER, THE NEGATIVES OF THE CEILING BEAMS ARE CLEARLY VISIBLE

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he cas­tle was sur­round­ed by a wall, which in the north­ern part had (since the 16th cen­tu­ry) a small ar­tillery bas­tion. This wall closed the out­er court­yard, in the north-east­ern part of which a ma­son­ry build­ing (res­i­den­tial, out­build­ing?) at­tached to a chapel and oc­tag­o­nal tur­ret was erect­ed in the ear­ly 18th cen­tu­ry. Ac­cess to the stronghold was re­strict­ed to the north by a moat and to the south by a steep rock and a stream flow­ing un­der­neath.

VIEW OF THE RUINS FROM THE WEST, M. CHOROWSKA "REZYDENCJE ŚREDNIOWIECZNE NA ŚLĄSKU"

NORTHERN WALL, PARTIALLY RECONSTRUCTED

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n the 18th cen­tu­ry, a Baroque manor house was erect­ed to the east of the tow­er - per­haps us­ing parts of an old­er chapel. It was a base­ment, two-sto­rey build­ing with a ter­race to the south. It had large, sym­met­ri­cal­ly placed win­dows, dec­o­ra­tive rus­ti­ca­tion and a gabled roof. The manor house was the longest-used part of the cas­tle grounds - even in the 1960s it still served as flats for the work­ers of the lo­cal kol­khoz.

PLAN OF THE CASTLE: 1. RESIDENTIAL TOWER, 2. SOUTH COURTYARD, 3. OUTER COURTYARD,
4. INN, 5. CHAPEL / OCTAGONAL TURRET, 6. BAROQUE MANOR HOUSE

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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e­spite the con­sid­er­able de­com­po­si­tion of the ru­ins, the lay­out of the me­dieval strong­hold can be eas­i­ly dis­cerned. This is be­cause an ex­cel­lent part of the Goth­ic perime­ter walls and the res­i­den­tial tow­er have sur­vived. The ru­ined manor house, chapel and out­build­ings have al­so re­mained. The cas­tle was unat­tend­ed and un­til the end of the 20th cen­tu­ry - now pri­vate own­ers, us­ing tra­di­tion­al build­ing meth­ods, are try­ing to save it from fur­ther degra­da­tion.

THE OUTBUILDING IS BEING RECONSTRUCTED VIRTUALLY FROM SCRATCH

IN THE CHAPEL

Admission paid (2 € in 2022), but opening hours ir­re­gu­lar.

We visit the tower ruin, the manor cellars and the chapel. It will take us about 15-30 mi­nutes.

Entry with a dog must be agreed with the ow­ners.

The ruin is not adapted for visitors with phy­si­cal dis­abi­li­ties (see pho­tos).

CASTLE CELLARS

GETTING THERE

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he cas­tle is situated just by the road no. 358, about 4 km south of the town of Leś­na. In­ter­ci­ty bus­es run through the vil­lage - the bus stop is lo­cat­ed near the ru­ins.

You can park your car on the road, in front of the gate.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. M. Chorowska: Rezydencje średniowieczne na Śląsku, OFPWW 2003
2. I. T. Kaczyńscy: Zamki w Polsce południowej, Muza SA 1999
3. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
4. R. Łuczyński: Zamki, dwory i pałace w Sudetach, Wspólnota Akademicka 2008
5. M. Perzyński: Dolnośląskie zamki, dwory i pałace, Wrocławski Dom Wydawniczy 2012
6. M. Świeży: Zamki, twierdze, warownie, Foto Art 2002
7. A. Wagner: Murowane budowle obronne w Polsce X-XVIIw., Bellona 2019

Castles nearby:
Leśna - Czocha Castle form the 13th/14th century, 6 km
Zapusta - Rajsko Castle from the 13th century, reconstructed, 11 km
Proszówka - ruins of Gryf Castle from the 13th century, 16 km
Rząsiny - relics of Podskale Castle from the 13th century, 24 km
Stara Kamienica - ruins of a knight's castle from the 16th century, 29 km
Gościszów - ruins of a 13th-century ducal castle, 31 km
Radłówka - Renaissance castle ruin from the 16th century, 33 km
Płakowice - Renaissance castle from the 16th century, 35 km
Rakowice Wielkie - two residential towers dating from the 15th/16th century, 36 km
Rybnica - Gothic castle ruins from the 14th century, 36 km
Wleń - ruins of a ducal castle from the 12th/13th century, 39 km
Siedlęcin - Gothic residential tower from the 14th century, 40 km

text: 2023
photos: 2004, 2022
© Jacek Bednarek