It is unique not only in the scale of the voivodeship. It is the only preserved example of a complex of over twenty such objects, which used to be located in this place on the Warta river bank. Thus, it is unique not only in the region but also in the whole country.

History of the structure

The royal town of Koło was founded under Magdeburg Law in 1362 by Casimir the Great. In addition to the parish church existing since the 13th century, a Bernardine monastery was founded in the town in 1456 by the starost of Koło, Jan Hińcza of Rogów, which was rebuilt together with the church in Baroque style and consecrated in 1788 after being destroyed by the floods of the Warta River. From the 15th century until 1716 general assemblies of the Province of Wielkopolska gathered in Koło (the meetings took place in the refectory of the Bernardine monastery, moreover, the nobility gathered in the nearby meadows on the Warta River). After the fire of 1622 and the destruction caused by the Swedish Deluge in 1655, the development of the town, based mainly on craft and trade, was halted. Despite that Koło remained the leading centre in the region, being the largest town of Konin district in the 18th century. After the loss of independence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the town came under Prussian rule, and in 1815 it was incorporated into the newly created Kingdom of Poland, which was subordinate to the Russian Empire. As in other nearby centres (e.g. Turek, Władysławów, Dobra), in the first half of the 19th century, weaving manufacture developed. In 1842, on the initiative of Józef Freudenreich, the first faience and majolica factory was established in the town. During the German occupation of Poland during World War II, the local Jewish population of about 5000 people were shot, deported or imprisoned in the Koło ghetto, and then murdered by the Germans in the nearby Nazi extermination camp in Chełmno nad Nerem (Rzuchowskie Forest) in 1941.

The granary in Koło was built in the early 19th century. There used to be more than twenty similar buildings located on the left bank of the eastern branch of the Warta River. In the 19th century the river flowing through the town, next to the road built in 1823, connecting Koło with Warsaw and Poznań, generated very intensive water transport, mainly of economic nature, the scale of which was expressed by the number of almost 1500 rafts floated down it annually. In addition to raw materials for faience and ceramics, it was mainly used to transport timber and agricultural products. Until the outbreak of World War II, the riverside granaries in Koło were privately owned. Some of them were destroyed by fires during the war. After 1945, the remaining granaries became the property of the State Treasury. Other buildings were destroyed or demolished in connection with the construction of the ZREMB factory. The only surviving granary was entered in the register of historic monuments in 1950. In the 1960s it was used by the Poznań Herbal Works “Herbapol”, which ran a herbal collection point and a warehouse there. In recent times, the building has been used sporadically, e.g. as a concert venue during the Koło Blues Festival.

Description of the structure

The Granary in Koło is located on the Old Town island in Żelazna Street, next to the northern branch of the Warta River. It is separated from the river by a high flood bank. The two-storey building was erected from wood in the post-and-plank structure on a stone foundation later reinforced with concrete, on a rectangular floor plan with its longer sides oriented along a north-west - southeast axis. The ground and first storeys have independent structures - the sill plate of the second storey is located on the top plate of the first storey. The gable roof, covered with roofing felt, of the Polish type, with gables and a step faced with boards, is situated on a roof truss with a log structure. The entrance door to the granary is located in the northeast and southwest walls. In addition, there was a separate door on the second storey level that was accessed by a now defunct exterior staircase. Set into the square window openings are wooden single-sash windows with two crisscrossing transoms. Under the floor of the ground floor there are tanks 1.3 meters deep. The beamed ceilings are supported on crossbeams resting on two rows of wooden pillars stiffened with longitudinal and transverse purlins and reinforced with braces.

Visitor access: The granary is open to visitors from the outside.

Author of the note: Tomasz Łuczak, 18.12.2017

Bibliography

• Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce, Vol. 5, Woj. wielkopolskie, ed. Teresa Ruszczyńska, Aniela Sławska, z. 8, Pow. kolski, compiled by J. Rutkowska, Warsaw 1960, p. 18.
• Koło – spichlerz, Record sheet of monuments of architecture and construction, Archive of the Voivodeship Heritage Protection Officer in Poznań - Branch in Konin
• Wielkopolska. Słownik krajoznawczy, ed. Łęcki Włodzimierz, Poznań 2002, pp. 140-142.
• Piotr Maluśkiewicz, Województwo konińskie. Szkic monograficzny, Warszawa-Poznań 1983, pp. 186-197.
• Piotr Maluśkiewicz, Ziemia konińska. Przewodnik turystyczny, Konin 2002, pp. 96-101