History

During the 16th and the 17th century, the village of Zawada remained the property of the Lizęga family, whose members built a castle here in the second half of the 16th century; they were then followed by the Przebędowski and Radziwiłł families. From the late 18th century onwards, the village was owned by the Raczyński family. In 1816, count Atanazy Raczyński, having chosen Zawada his family seat, began the process of reconstruction of the ruined castle built by the Lizęga family. The floor plan and surviving sections of the castle formed the basis of a new building designed in part by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, a renowned architect whose task was to create a front facade for the newly built mansion. After barely 100 years, the castle was set on fire by the Don Cossacks in 1915. Many works of art kept within the castle perished in the blaze, as did the books in the castle library. After World War I, a fragment of the ruins with a single tower and chapel was restored. In addition, a new mansion was built in 1920 in the eastern part of the park at the initiative of count Edward Bernard Raczyński. The two-storey palace, also known as the manor house, was probably designed by an English architect brought in by the wife of count Raczyński, who came from England. After World War II, the manor served as a State Agricultural Farm (PGR). In the 1990s the property was acquired by a private owner. The surviving complex now consists of a palace, a chapel with a tower, a washhouse incorporating a section of a Gothic Revival wall dating back to the 19th century alteration works, a gatehouse built in the first half of the 19th century, a well dating back to the late 18th or early 19th century, an outbuilding erected in the first half of the 19th century and currently undergoing restoration as well as extensive parkland.

Description

The entire complex is situated in the central part of the village, on a level area near the junction of the E4 road and a local road leading south, towards the village of Stobierna. The complex borders on the aforementioned roads to the north and east; the village lies to the west, while in the south there is a group of buildings comprising the manor farm. The total surface of the complex is about 19 hectares.

The surviving parts of the complex were built over the course of a few centuries - from the 17th century until the first half of the 20th century. The larger structures lie in the central section of the park, although they do not conform to any readily identifiable plan and appear to have been freely scattered about.

The palace lies at the core of the entire complex; it is located in the eastern part of the park, near the outbuilding. Designed in the English Renaissance Revival style and built on a rectangular floor plan, it features a recessed portico on the ground floor level with a terrace located directly above. The palace has two storeys and a basement; its main body is covered with a gable roof, while the side sections feature two further gable roofs positioned transversely. The walls are made of brick and covered with plaster, while the roof features beaver tail roof tiles forming a “lace” pattern. The front (western) facade features a seven-axis design. The portico features four Ionic columns supporting a terrace on the first floor level, adorned with a stone balustrade. The side avant-corps are topped with gable walls with a flattened volute shape and centrally positioned oval windows, with wider, semicircular windows visible below, on the first floor level. The remaining windows are all rectangular in shape and feature profiled window surrounds. Dormers projecting out of the eastern and western planes of the roof, equipped with three small windows each and topped with volute-shaped pediments, provide additional illumination of the attic rooms. The eastern facade also features a seven-axis design, with gable ends featuring a design mirroring that of the front facade. The windows are adorned with profiled surrounds. The south facade has five axes and a two-storey, three-sided avant-corps crowned with a voluted pediment pierced by a semicircular window. Other windows feature profiled window surrounds. The northern facade is dominated by a tall window topped with a semicircular arch designed to illuminate the staircase; to the left there are two small windows on both levels of the building, with two further windows, each of a different size, positioned below it. All windows feature profiled window surrounds. The building is crowned by a simple cornice. On the two longer facades of the building, the cornice is interrupted by the gable ends framed by volute-shaped decorations. Over the course of the last few years, the owner of the palace performed comprehensive renovation works.

The neo-Gothic Romantic castlette consists of three sections: the chapel, built on a rectangular floor plan, the adjoining tower and staircase, the latter both featuring an oval floor plan. The cuboid, two-storey building is covered with a gable roof, while the roof of the tower is obscured by crenellation; the additional small turret containing the staircase is topped with a conical roof. The castlette is a brick and stone structure with plaster-covered walls; the ceiling of the ground floor is made of reinforced concrete, while the stairs in the smaller tower are constructed from wood. The south facade follows a three-axis design with paired windows on the first floor and simple doors positioned in the centre of the ground floor level. The corners are supported by buttresses. The north facade is crowned with an attic divided into two sections; two paired arched windows are located on the first floor level. The eastern facade is topped with a gable end with two distinct sections, adorned with pinnacles and pointed-arch blind windows. In addition, two windows can be seen in the lower section of the gable end, both of them following a pointed arch design. The western facade features a decorative, stepped gable end with two small windows positioned in the centre, on a single axis. The windows of the four-storey cylindrical tower do not follow any regular pattern; the staircase turret features a spiral arrangement of windows which follows the course of the stairs.

The outbuilding is a single-storey structure built on a rectangular floor plan, with a steeply angled hip roof with three dormers in the southern part of the roof as well as two further dormers on its northern side. All dormers feature gable roofs and gable ends clad with weatherboards. The building is made of brick, while the roof is clad with roof tiles. The front (southern) facade follows a four-axis design, with the front door flanked by two pillars standing proud from the wall. The northern, eastern and western facades follow a five-, one- and two-axis design respectively and feature simple, six-pane windows. Over the course of the last few years, the outbuilding underwent a comprehensive restoration which also involved the replacement of a substantial part of its original components; the picture shows the outbuilding during renovation works.

The former washhouse is a plain, single-storey brick structure built on a rectangular floor plan, covered with a gable roof clad with ceramic roof tiles. The longer facades (the south and north facade) follow a three-axis design; the entrance is located in the centre section of the southern facade. The facade are covered with plaster and feature no exterior decorations, with the exception of the eastern facade, made of brick and stone which was left exposed; this wall features a bricked-up portal with a pointed arch, forming part of the surviving neo-Gothic wall with a gate which once acted as a boundary for the inner courtyard.

The gatehouse in the northern section of the fence is a small, two-storey structure built on a rectangular floor plan; made of brick and stone, it features a tall hip roof clad with ceramic roof tiles. The northern and southern facades are pierced by a rectangular gateway topped with a semicircular arch, with a small window positioned directly above. Inside, in the eastern part of the building, there is a staircase leading to a small first-floor room.

The well which survives in the south-eastern part of the park features a stone lining rising slightly above the ground level, flanked by two stone obelisks positioned on the opposite sides of the well.

The extensive park shows evident signs of neglect, even though traces of the landscape composition shown in the real estate plan dating back to the mid-19th century are still apparent. The surviving old-growth trees include a natural group of oaks which are now over 300 years old as well as numerous growths of domestic trees, forming compact clusters of beech, ash, linden and maple.

The complex is now in private hands and may only be viewed from the outside.

Compiled by Barbara Potera, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Rzeszów, 19.08.2014.

Bibliography

• Libicki P., Dwory i pałace wiejskie w Małopolsce i na Podkarpaciu, Poznań 2012, s.529, 530.
• Polakowski S., Pozostałości założeń dworskich województwa podkarpackiego, Krosno 2012, s. 78, 79.
• Karty ewidencyjne do obiektów: pałac, oficyna, pralnia z bramką, budynek bramny, kaplica z basztą, oprac. Łyżka R., 2003, Archiwum Urzędu Ochrony Zabytków w Rzeszowie.