History

The Renaissance manor house was constructed in 1550 or thereabouts for the von Pannwitz noble family; designed on a rectangular floor plan, this moated manor house featured two suites of rooms with a vestibule positioned on the building’s middle axis. Somewhere around the year 1600, the manor house was extended at the request of Friedrich Georg von Kittlitz und Ottendorf; it was at that point that the current front suite of rooms - furnished with beamed ceilings - was added. The façades of the manor house were adorned with sgraffito decorations, with the vaulted ceiling of one of the rooms being graced by Mannerist stucco decorations incorporating various strapwork motifs.

Somewhere around the year 1724, the residence was redesigned in the Baroque style by the building’s new owners - the von Tschirsky family. The manor house received a new roof based on a massive, two-storey roof truss constructed using old wooden beams, some of which may have been covered with geometric painted decorations from the Renaissance period. The painted decorations on some of the wooden beamed ceilings were executed during the same period. The moat is believed to have been filled with earth in the 18th century. The manor house was renovated and modernised in 1794, when the roof cladding was replaced; further works followed in 1811 (new plaster finish on façades, new window surrounds), in the 1860s (addition of a terrace adjoining the rear façade) and in the 1920s (addition of a wall dormer in the rear façade).

Today, the building is in a state of ruin - a consequence of many years of devastation and neglect.

Description

The manor house is situated in the middle of the village, in the vicinity of the grange; remnants of the former moat can still be discerned near the building itself.

The Renaissance manor house is a single-storey structure with a basement underneath parts of its structure, covered with a tall half-hip roof and featuring a terrace dating back to the 1860s which adjoins the rear façade. The front façade is preceded by the remnants of the bridge which spans the slight depression that marks the spot where the moat had once been. The manor house was designed on an irregular quadrilateral floor plan, featuring a round corner extension on the western side of the building and a square avant-corps adjoining the side façade. The windows are rectangular in shape. Most of the façades are now deprived of their plaster finish as well as of the vestiges of the faux sgraffito rustication underneath. The interior can be subdivided into two distinct sections; the north-western section, dating back to ca. 1550, follows a two-bay layout, with some rooms equipped with vaulted ceilings, while the south-eastern (front) section from ca. 1600 also follows a two-bay layout, but features wooden beamed ceilings throughout, adorned with Baroque painted decorations from ca. 1724, incorporating foliate scrolls made up of acanthus leaves as well as grapevine and olive branch motifs. The vaulted ceilings in the older part of the house are of the groin or barrel type, with some of the barrel vaults featuring lunettes arranged in an alternating pattern. The basement level likewise features barrel vaults (some of them with lunettes). Wooden beams and boards adorned with painted decorations with rhombus-shaped motifs can be found in the attic; originally, these were located in a different part of the house and were later used as reclaimed building materials when the alteration works were being conducted.

The historic monument can be viewed from the outside (private property).

compiled by Beata Sebzda, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Wrocław, 06-08-2015.

Bibliography

• Eysymontt K., Architektura renesansowych dworów na Dolnym Śląsku. Wrocław 2010, pp. 295-296.
• Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce. Seria Nowa, vol. IV, issue 6, Województwo wrocławskie (dolnośląskie), powiat strzeliński, E. Kołaczkiewicz (ed.), Warsaw 2008, pp. 133-135.
• Pilch J., Leksykon zabytków architektury Dolnego Śląska. Warsaw 2005, p. 225.
• Zabytki sztuki w Polsce. Śląsk, Warsaw 2006, p. 558.