St Stanislaus Church, Świniary

The Peter's Pence register of 1326 contains the entry "Nicolaus, plebanus ecclesie de Swiniar" – the oldest written mention of the parish of Świniary. Today's wooden Church of St Stanislaus the Bishop stands in this village in the Ponidzie region of south-central Poland, in Solec-Zdrój municipality, combining a timber nave with a masonry tower, chapel and sacristy. Inside, as the municipality puts it, the church is strikingly colourful and mostly Baroque.

History and architecture

The wooden church is dated to the mid-17th century. In the 18th century it was enlarged: the nave was extended westwards and joined to the Baroque tower, which until then had stood on its own. In 1874 a brick chapel with a porch was added on the north side, and in 1902 an annex with the sacristy and an entrance porch on the south.

The timber part consists of a rectangular nave and a narrower, three-sided chancel under a single roof with an 18th-century Baroque bell turret. The tower has a masonry lower section with recessed panels, propped by massive buttresses, and timber upper storeys under a broken, many-sided roof crowned by a small dome and cross. The church and its enclosure wall are a listed monument (register no. A.68/1-2).

Inside the church

• The high altar – late Baroque with Rococo ornament, Baroque statues and a crucifix in the central scene.
• The left side altar with a late Renaissance painting of St Anne with the Virgin and Child from the early 17th century, and a Madonna and Child in a decorative cover on a mirrored background with diamond patterns.
• The right side altar with an 18th-century painting of St Stanislaus at Piotrowin.
• 18th-century pews – one bearing the Prus III coat of arms, another the Łabędź (Swan) arms with a trophy of weapons – and a Rococo organ case on a gallery resting on two posts.
• The 18th-century pulpit and stone font, and the painted timber ceiling over the nave.

Around the church

South-east of the church stands a stone column of 1694, put up to mark the establishment of the Rosary devotion: on a pillar with carved inscriptions, a group of statues shows the Virgin and Child adored by St Dominic and St Catherine. It was damaged in fighting in 1945; after restoration it was held together with clamps that are still visible. The complex also includes the enclosure wall, the churchyard and a brick presbytery of 1890, and further on a 19th-century parish cemetery with a chapel of 1884.

Tripto tip

This is a working parish church with no fixed visiting hours – the exterior can be seen any time, and the easiest way inside is just before or after Mass. Allow 20–30 minutes for the church and the column. Świniary lies on national road 79 between Kraków and Sandomierz, in the Solec Basin, so the church fits easily into a stay at the spa town of Solec-Zdrój.