History

The town of Czempiń, founded on the lands of the village of Wielki Piechanin, was first mentioned in 1387. Date of location unknown. Piechanino was mentioned as a town in 1401 (it appeared under this name until 1459, alternately with Czempiń, mentioned since 1403). A private town, in the first half of the 15th century it belonged to the Szamotulski family, then in the years 1446-70 to the Bniński family, 1470-1575 Górka family, of whom Stanisław, later Governor of Poznań, confirmed its municipal rights and privileges in 1561. From 1562 the town received a fair privilege. Until 1601 it was the property of the Melechowski family. In the years 1601-1834 the owners of the Czempiń estate was the Szołdrski family. In 1846-47 the estate was purchased by the German Delhaes family. The town was destroyed by fires in 1697 and 1840. The development of crafts, mainly linen-making took place in the second half of the 18th century. From 1856, the Poznań-Wrocław railway line has been running through the city. The palace was located in the village of Borówko Stare (today, it is part of Czempiń), probably on the site of an older residence of Czempiń’s owners. At the beginning of the 17th century, a castle was mentioned, built by Stanisław Szołdrski, which was destroyed during the Swedish wars in 1655-6. The present Baroque palace was built around 1698-1700 for Andrzej Szołdrski, castellan of Biechów. The construction with elevation decoration was completed in 1729-39 for Ludwik Szołdrski, at that time Governor of Inowrocław and General of Wielkopolska, and his wife Marianna, née Unrug. In the first half of the 18th century, the complex was extended by erecting, in front of the palace on the north and south sides, quarter-circular single-storey galleries with gate towers, surrounding the cour d’honneur. In 1782, a new palace chapel was built. Before 1836 the galleries and gate towers were demolished. Around 1904 Karol Emil von Delhaes had the palace interiors rebuilt and a terrace added to the façade, as well as a balcony in the garden-facing elevation. The Baroque-classicist chapel of St. Simon and Jude the Apostles was built in 1782 from the foundation of Feliks Szołdrski. In the years 1848-1945, it was in the hands of Evangelicals.

Description of the structure

The palace and park complex and the chapel of St. Juda are situated in the north-eastern part of Czempiń, in the outskirts of Stare Borówko, on a large plot of land located between Parkowa, Borówko Stare, Zielony Rynek Square and Śremska Street. From the east, the site borders with wastelands. The palace faces west and is preceded by a large courtyard with a gate, surrounded by a park with a chapel in its northern part. The palace is a Baroque, brick, plastered building. It is a two-story eleven-axial building set upon a rectangular floor plan with a higher three-axial middle section (which originally housed a two-storey hall on the first floor) with avant-corps on both sides of the longitudinal elevation, and two-axial, more prominent side avant-corps in the front façade. Hipped roofs over the body, gable roofs over the avant-corps, covered with slate. The building has a basement only in the northern part. The elevations of the palace have storeys crowned with profiled cornices. The avant-corps with gables of rich design and decoration. The windows, except for the storeys of the central avant-corps, are rectangular, with flat window frames, on the ground floor with prominent keystones. The central front avant-corps is framed on both storeys by pilasters, with even pilasters on the sides of the wider central bay. In the centre, a portal framed by Corinthian columns on oblique pedestals, against a background of pilasters, with entablature surrounding an oval plaque with a foundation inscription in Latin and the date 1739. On the first floor of the avant-corps there are giant order pilasters supporting the entablature and enclosing two storeys of windows of the former reception hall, topped with a semi-circular arch. The lower windows are topped with semicircular cornices, the upper windows are much smaller. Above the windows, regency decoration with ribbon and plant motifs, with female busts in the centre. The avant-corps is crowned by sections of attic above the side bays with statues personifying the four directions of the world, and above the central bay by a double gable with wavy volute-shaped cornices, filled with decoration. Among the panoplies is a cartouche with the Łodzia coat of arms and the initials “LSZ WI GW” (Ludwik Szołdrski Governor of Inowrocław, General of Wielkopolska). In the garden-facing elevation, a central avant-corps is framed with pilasters with spans of equal width, with a similar arrangement and window decoration (without busts). The top of the avant-corps is closed with wavelets and volutes. Among the panoplies and regency decoration there is a cartouche with the Unrug family’s coat of arms - Lew [lion] - and the initials “MSZ IW GW” (Marianna Szołdrska, Wife of the Governor of Inowrocław, General of Wielkopolska). At the portal there are two relief tondos from around 1739 with personifications of Boreas and Zephyr. The avant-corps is preceded by a prominent corrugated balcony supported by six columns, added in 1904. In the middle of the balustrade of the balcony there are neo-Rococo cartouches with the coats of arms of the owners from 1904: Karol Emil von Delhaes and his wife Anna Maria Roedern. Side avant-corps of the front façade are topped with wavy gables with volutes, filled with ribbon and plant decoration with shells. On the terrace there is a ceramic urn probably from the 2nd half of the 19th century.

The interior has a two-tract layout with a hallway and dining room on the axis of the ground floor. A staircase from ca. 1900 is located in the hallway from the south. The side rooms, in a two- and three-tract layout, were transformed around 1900 and after 1945. On the axis of the first floor there was originally a two-storey hall, divided and lowered by the ceiling around 1900. The upper part of the hall with windows and fragments of Rococo paintings from the second half of the 18th century was included in the attic. The al secco paintings created panels between the windows, topped with Rococo medallions in the form of bouquets and leafy branches, held by putti. On the side walls, at the top, there was a frieze with medallions and suspended laurel garlands, barely visible today, and trompe l’œil architectural motifs below. The hallway and representative rooms are decorated in Art-Nouveau style from around 1900. The hallway has marble portals and stairs and on the first floor there is a library with stuccoed ceilings and a preserved set of closets. In the hallway there are two 19th century reliefs worth noting, copies of fragments of Bertel Thorwaldsen’s frieze from 1812, with the scene of “Alexander the Great’s Entry into Babylon”.

The park is located east of the palace, with partially preserved old trees from the 18th century and a relic of a regular layout in the form of two alleys: from the northeast and partially from the south. Enlarged after the middle of the 19th century with a landscape layout. The former palace chapel is now the filial church of St. Simon and Jude the Apostles. It is an oriented building, made of brick and plastered. The walls are segmented with simplified Tuscan pilasters with a broken entablature. The western façade is triaxial, with bricked up windows between pilasters, closed with an arch segment. The entrance to the chapel is in a small porch added in the 19th century. Above the crowning cornice on the attic wall, a gable with pilasters and volutes closed with a triangular pediment. In the gable roof, behind the gable there is a rectangular tower, covered with slate, with a pyramidal cupola built in the 19th century. On top of the cupola there is a flag in the shape of the Łodzia coat of arms with the date 1779 and the letters FS (Feliks Szołdrski). The interior is aisleless, three-bay, on a rectangular floor plan, closed on three sides. Behind the main altar is the sacristy. On the sides of the nave there are rooms with lodges on the first floor, opened to the interior with arcades. The interior is covered with a flat ceiling with crown moulding. The walls are divided by double pilasters with capitals decorated with festoons and flower branches in Louis XVI style. The windows and arcades of the lodges are topped with basket-handle arches. The main altar comes from ca. 1782. In the 2nd half of the 19th century it was converted into a pulpit for the Evangelicals. It was restored to its original shape in 1945. In the main field of the altar there is a painting of St. Anna Samotrzeć, Baroque, from the beginning of the 18th century, painted by S. Reinhardt.

Visitor access: the palace and park - private property, inaccessible, the chapel available during services.

Compiled by: Beata Marzęta, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Poznań, 10.08.2017

Bibliography

• Barokowe dwory i pałace w Wielkopolsce, concept, texts, photo selection by Maria Strzałko, Poznań 2006, pp. 40-47.
• Dawne Budownictwo Folwarczne - Majątki Wielkopolskie - Vol. V - Powiat Kościański, pp. 45-48
• Jaśkowiak F., Województwo poznańskie, Warszawa-Poznań 1980, pp. 96-97
• Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce, Vol. V, z. 10, pp. 24-28