The quadrangular palace with an inner courtyard and a well-kept park surrounding it are picturesque features of the rural cultural landscape. Near the palace, there is a late Renaissance parish Church of St. Simon and St. Judas Thaddaeus.

History

The palace was built around the middle of the 17th century, when Wilhelm von Warlowski was the owner of Szymiszów. In 1831, the property was purchased by the Strachwitz family, who owned it until 1945. The palace was extended in 1912 and burned soon after, during the Silesian Uprising in 1921. It was reconstructed in 1922. Renovated, after World War 2, it served as a hospital, and since the 1970s it has housed a Social Welfare Home.

The park adjacent to the palace was established using parts of the earlier eighteenth-century garden complex. In the mid-19th century, a landscape park was established featuring a free composition; at the turn of the 19th century to the 20th century it was converted into a forest park.

The extensive buildings of the grange in Szymiszów were built in two stages. The granary entered in the register of monuments is a remnant of an older building dating from the mid-19th century, concentrated around a smaller farmyard near the palace. The grange existing to this day, located west of the palace, was built in the early 20th century (around 1912).

Description

The palace, park and manor farm complex is located at the western edge of the village.

The palace is built of stone and brick, on a plan in the shape of a quadrangle, with an inner yard. It consists of a basement, two storeys, and is covered with a mansard roof, with dormers designed to provide illumination to the usable attic. The front façade is eleven-axial and faces the west. Its southern part adjoins a terrace supported by pillars, under which there is the main entrance and a heraldic cartouche from the 18th century. The remaining façades (southern one: thirteenth-axial; eastern and northern ones: ten-axial) are smoothly plastered, with vertical rustication in the corners. Rectangular windows and blind windows of various sizes are enclosed in profiled stucco surrounds. On the ground floor of the quadrangular courtyard, there are clearly discernible semicircular arcades of the cloister preserved beside the eastern wing. The interior features a one-bay layout with a corridor on the side of the courtyard. Some of the ground floor rooms are covered with barrel vaults, barrel vaults with lunettes and double barrel vaults, while the other ones are topped with ceilings; the ceiling in the drawing room is adorned with stucco decorations, while the other ones are flat. Behind the main entrance, there is a large tripartite hallway, next to which there is a chapel and a staircase leading to a ballroom.

The manorial granary is side-gabled and is located near the north-western corner of the palace. It is made of brick, plastered, erected on a floor plan in the shape of an elongated rectangle, and covered with a gable roof. It consists of two storeys and a high usable attic illuminated by pairs of narrow windows placed under the eaves and overlooking the street. The remaining window openings are small in the shape similar to a square. The western gable-end façade features an irregular layout and is pierced by a large loading opening made at a later time; the eastern façade is partially covered by a modern annex. All side façades have five axes. The single-space interior is covered with a wooden ceiling.

Both buildings are located in the area of a park complex surrounded by a wall, which can be accessed via two gates, the northern one and the southern one, the so-called "black gate". The Rożniątowski stream runs through the north-eastern part of the park, while the centre of the park is occupied by a pond. In the area of the park covering approximately 8.5 ha, there are protected species and animals (e.g., greater twayblade, northern crested newt), exotic southern catalpa, beeches, oaks, and many more.

The park and palace are open to visitors; Viewing of the interior of the palace is possible by arrangement with the management of the Social Welfare Home. The granary can be viewed from the outside.

compiled by Ewa Kalbarczyk-Klak, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Opole, 18-11-2015.

Bibliography

• Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce, vol. VII, issue 14, T. Chrzanowski, M. Kornecki (eds.), pp. 36-37.
• Zabytki sztuki w Polsce. Śląsk. Warsaw 2006, p. 839.