The building has retained its former shape, partly historical door and window woodwork, and a few fragmentary preserved ornaments of the elevation, such as festoons or frames of window openings.

History of the structure

The manor house dates back to 1800. The construction was most probably initiated by the von Biedau family: Count Franciszek Ksawery and his wife Maria Teresa. It was a compact building, set on a rectangular floor plan with the front elevation facing north-west. Its appearance was changed by an extension that took place between 1913 and 1926, when the estate was owned by Count Hermann zu Solms-Baruth. A second building, also rectangular in plan, was added to the north. Both parts are connected by an elliptical connector with a staircase. In the 1930s, after the escape of the last owner, the Ciepielowice estate was nationalized. During World War II it housed a field hospital, and right after the war the palace was inhabited by military settlers. No restoration work was done on the site after 1945. In 1947 the authorities of the district branch of PUR (State Repatriation Office) in Niemodlin decided to allot 172 ha of the estate for the so-called cooperative settlement. Thus, a secondary division of the interiors in the manor building was introduced, adapting its rooms for residential premises, belonging to multiple owners. In 2015, the tower above the connector collapsed along with part of the roof, the destruction was completed by a fire in December of the same year. Currently, the object is gradually deteriorating and falling into ruin.

Description of the structure

The manor house in Ciepielowice is located in the north-eastern part of the village, within the former palace-park-farm complex. Situated in the middle of the complex, it was the centre of the estate, whose north-western side is now marked only by the remains of the manor buildings. A former landscape park extends to the southeast and northeast of the manor house. The main entrance once led through a beech and hornbeam avenue to the courtyard area in front of the main entrance. Currently, there is a short access road leading to the residential part called Zamkowa Street. The former manor house is a two-part building and its plan is similar to the letter “L”. It consists of a rectangular western wing, which in its south-eastern corner is connected to the second secondary wing , which is perpendicular to it. They were connected by an elliptical connector, once with a portal flanked by pilasters and closed by a balcony balustrade.

The mansion house is a brick, two-storey building with a basement and a mansard roof with domes. Originally it faced the north-west, after the expansion the front entrance was located in the basement of the connector on the south side. The façade of the main wing is seven-axis with a pseudo-avant-corps slightly protruding from the face of the building, containing the main entrance in the central axis. The door opening was closed with a three-centred arch, now framed with a fragmentary preserved, once richly elaborated frame with a keystone placed in its arch. In the lower part, the avant-corps was accentuated by rustication in a strip layout, and on the first floor it was flanked by pilasters raising a curved cornice at the top. Above in the slope of the roof, the main axis was accented by an attic room with dormers arranged on the sides, now significantly burnt.

The individual elevations of the palace were characterized by a classicist, symmetrical composition and modest architectural decor. The axes were marked by regularly spaced rectangular window openings on each story, now with partially preserved frames and garlands (mainly under the windows on the second story and in the attic section). Traces of the old divisions have also survived, including the string course and fragments of rusticated strips at the corners of the elevation. The massive mansard roof of the west wing was completely destroyed by fire. The roof of the second wing in the west section was also damaged. The mass of this wing is still distinguished by the triaxial attic windows located in the roof slope on the south-west and northeast elevations with a window in the axis and two decoratively cut panels on the sides, below which festoons are placed.

Visitor access: the building can be viewed from the outside.

Author: Katarzyna Latocha, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Opole, 19.02.2019

Bibliography

• Record sheet of monuments of architecture and construction. Pałac, compiled by Jacek Kaczurba, 1998.
• Katalog Zabytków Sztuki w Polsce, vol. VII: Województwo opolskie, z. 8: powiat niemodliński, ed. T. Chrzanowski and M. Kornecki, Warsaw 1964, p. 4.
• Chrzanowski T., Kornecki M., Sztuka Śląska Opolskiego, od średniowiecza do końca w. XIX, Kraków 1974, p. 376.
• Banik J., Szwed W., Dąbrowa. Zarys monografii gminy, Opole, 2009, pp. 145-174