History

The first manor to be formed in the Idzików area - the so-called Upper Manor - was first mentioned in written sources back in 1344. In the mid- 14th century, the site remained a feudal manor consisting of three łans of land (łan being an old unit of field measurement), a tavern, a mill and a part of the village, inhabited by a couple of serfs and villeins. Before 1361, a manor farm was established on the site. Between ca. 1350 and 1624, the entire demesne remained in the hands of the local nobility from the Kłodzko Region, while in the first half of the 16th century (according to the results of archaeological research carried out in years 1988-1989), the Upper Manor House was erected. The edifice featured a simple layout derived from medieval building traditions, with a rectangular floor plan and a single-bay, tripartite layout. The manor house did not posses any defensive qualities. The manor house was lost to the blaze in 1566 and was later rebuilt as a two- or even three-storey building made of split stone, its first-floor rooms being of a rather grand, representational design. It is now believed that, after 1624, its use as a country home was incidental at best, since some of the owners of the Upper Manor also held other properties elsewhere. In addition, the fact that all the land around Idzików was finally unified by the counts von Wallis also had an impact on the manner in which the mansion was used, since the former Upper Manor has lost most of its significance as a result. Moreover, in 1793 the manor was largely subdivided into smaller units. As a result, the buildings forming the grange located in the Upper Manor came to be used for both residential and utility purposes throughout the 18th century. As for the manor house itself, we know that by 1799 it was already in a dilapidated state and that in the early 19th century it was consistently referred to as a ruin. In years 1945-1969, both the manor house and the buildings comprising the surrounding grange were being gradually dismantled, with the building material thus obtained being used for road construction. As a result, all that was left of the building at the end of the 1960s was a fragment of a wall incorporating small niches wherein the ceiling beams used to be anchored as well as remnants of windows and traces of now-vanished oriels. The remnants of a utility building which adjoined the manor house had also still been in existence at this stage.

Description

The Upper Manor is situated at the eastern edge of the village, between the main road and the nearby stream. Today, all that is left of the manor house is a fragment of one of its walls, much smaller than back in the 1960s. The original layout of the manor house can no longer be easily discerned.

The building can be viewed from the outside. The site is overgrown with self-sown vegetation. For the above reason, the site is hard to locate during the summer season.

compiled by Iwona Rybka-Ceglecka, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Wrocław, 06-07-2015.

Bibliography

• Brzezicki S., Nielsen Ch., Grajewski G., Popp D. (ed.), Zabytki sztuki w Polsce. Śląsk, Warsaw 2006