The edifice is surrounded by a landscape park which blends in seamlessly with the natural landscape beyond.

History

The town of Tarnogóra was founded by Jan Tarnowski, the great crown hetman, on the site of the former royal village of Ostrzyca; in 1548, the new settlement obtained municipal rights. A fortified manor (fortalicium) is known to have existed here, serving as the residence for the consecutive holders of the title of starosta (alderman) or various tenants. In 1750, the erstwhile starosta, Antoni Granowski, founded a small town called Izbica on the other side of the Wieprz river, along the main route leading through the area. It was to this town that all the Jews of Tarnogóra were subsequently relocated; later on, due to the rather lackluster pace of development, Tarnogóra was deprived of municipal rights in 1869. In the early 19th century, the Czartoryski family became the owners of the town for a brief period of time, followed by Ignacy Horodyski and, from 1823 onwards, by Józef Czyżewski, the Polish armed forces general who erected the existing brick palace here in years 1830-1840. The manor remained in the hands of the Czyżewski family until 1910, when, following the death of Stanisław Czyżewski, the male line of the family expired, with the town being inherited by Stanisław’s nephew, Władysław Smorczewski, who continued to live here right until World War II. After the war came to an end, the palace was adapted to serve as a school, which it does to this very day.

Description

The manor house and park complex is situated in the east part of the village, on the south side of a local road. The complex consists of a palace preceded by a driveway and a representational, oval lawn on the western side of which stands a group of new buildings which replace the former outbuilding; on the eastern side of the complex one may still find the remains of a now-defunct manufacturing plan. On the south-western side of the complex there lies an extensive park and utility gardens, with the entire complex bordering on the meandering Wieprz river towards the east and the south.

The Palace. The palace was designed in the Late Classicist style, with a touch of Gothic Revival. The front façade of the building faces the north; the palace is designed on a rectangular floor plan and features a circular tower positioned on the south-western corner as well as a porch added at a later date, adjoining the building towards the east. The building is a single-storey structure with a basement, featuring a two-storey middle section of the front façade; in addition, the façade overlooking the garden also follows a two-storey design due to the presence of a sloping terrain. The interior, divided into a multitude of rooms, follows a two-bay layout with a hall and drawing room positioned on the axis of the building; the individual suites of rooms in the middle and western sections are divided by a hallway. The palace is a brick building, its walls covered with plaster. The building features wooden ceilings, with barrel vaults being used for the basements. The main body is covered by a hip roof, with the portico and the tower featuring a gable roof and a conical roof respectively; all roofs are clad with sheet metal. The front façade follows an eleven-axial design, featuring a three-axial, two-storey middle section preceded by a Portico with two pairs of Tuscan columns in giant order, topped with a low, triangular pediment. The entablature of the portico incorporates an inscription with the date “1840”. The façade overlooking the garden follows a two-storey, nine-axial, asymmetrical design, with a two-storey terrace towards the east. The western façade takes the form of a romanticised Gothic Revival castlette with a tower embedded in its south-western corner. A corbelled cornice and crenellated parapet provide the finishing touch. The windows vary in terms of shape and size; the first floor section, for example, features a wide window with Moorish-style joinery, while the ground floor section boasts an oculus as well as rectangular windows in a niche topped with a pair of arches supported by engaged columns. All of the façades of the palace feature similar horizontal partitions in the form of simple string courses which run at the height of the wall base, underneath the windows, as well as a profiled modillion cornice at the top of the façade. The windows in the southern, northern and eastern façades are rectangular in shape and are topped with simple cornices. Inside, some of the original fixtures and fittings can still be admired, including the plasterwork decorations designed in the Classicist style, wood panelling and decorative door and window surrounds as well as vibrant tiled floors, wooden parquet flooring, tiled stoves and a Renaissance Revival fireplace surround in the hall.

The romanticised landscape park has been substantially extended in the late 19th and early 20th century. Founded on an elevated edge of the Wieprz river valley, the park features a highly variegated terrain. It consists of the section located in the immediate vicinity of the palace, with a driveway and representational lawn, the upper garden with its remains of lime tree alleys and lines of hornbeams as well as the lower garden following an informal layout and featuring a number of small meadows and landscaped areas circumscribed by the meandering river and a few ponds. The park also encompasses the nearby groves, positioned towards the north-west. Up front there are fragments of a brick perimeter wall designed in the Gothic Revival style.

The structure is open to visitors.

compiled by Bożena Stanek-Lebioda, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Lublin, 03-10-2014.

Bibliography

• Record sheet, Palace and park complex. Tarnogóra, compiled by Boruch W., 1996, Archive of the Regional Office for the Protection of Historical Monuments in Chełm; Archive of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Warsaw.
• Aftanazy R., Dzieje rezydencji na dawnych kresach Rzeczypospolitej, Vol. VI, Województwo bełskie, ziemia chełmska województwa ruskiego, issue II, Wrocław (…) 1995, pp. 370-382.
• Jaroszewski T. S., Dwory i dworki w Polsce (przewodnik, część druga), Warsaw 1999, pp. 117-120.
• Record sheet, Palace. Tarnogóra, compiled by Boruch W., Studziński J., 1996, Archive of the Regional Monuments Protection Office in Lublin; Archive of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Warsaw.
• Katalog Zabytków Sztuki w Polsce, Vol. VIII: Województwo lubelskie, issue 8: Powiat krasnostawski, compiled by Sulerzyska T., Uniechowska F., Rowińska E., Warsaw 1964, pp. 62-64.
• Omilanowska M., Polska. Pałace i dwory, Warsaw 2005, pp. 103-10
• Żywicki J., Architektura neogotycka na Lubelszczyźnie, Lublin 1998, pp. 319-320.