Graboszyce Manor House

On the road from Zator to Wadowice, in a small village on the edge of the Carpathian Foothills, stands one of the oldest noble residences in western Lesser Poland. The masonry fortified manor in Graboszyce was built around 1570–1580 by Dziwisz (Dionizy) Brandys, a royal courtier and secretary. A moat surrounds the building on three sides and a pond on the fourth, with an old-growth park all around. After years of neglect the manor has been restored and looks impressive again – though it can only be seen from outside.

History: from the Brandys family to the Chrząszcz family

The Brandys family of the Radwan coat of arms, who came from Bohemia, held Graboszyce for a long time. Archaeologists found that as early as the late 15th or early 16th century, on the initiative of Klemens Brandys, walls were built on a rectangular plan that today form the outline of the cellars. Dziwisz expanded them into a grand manor, and his son Piotr, clerk of Oświęcim, sold the estate in 1626 to the Cichocki family of Wojsławice. In the 18th century Tomasz Russocki gave the house a Baroque remodelling: the crowning of the front projection dates from this time, while the crenellated parapet was pulled down and replaced with a mansard roof. In 1835–1840 Stanisław and Henrietta Sołtyk added Romantic touches – a Neoclassical gable on the west projection, a staircase and a bridge over the moat, once decorated with urns. From 1864 to 1945 the estate belonged to the Chrząszcz family, whose grave lies by the nearby church.

What to see

• The manor's block with its Baroque gable and late-16th-century stonework on the façades.
• The moat running around three sides of the building and the pond closing off the fourth.
• The Romantic-Neoclassical bridge on the site of the former drawbridge.
• The park with veteran trees, laid out by the Sołtyk family.

Did you know?

After the Second World War, once the last owners had been expropriated, the historic interiors were used, among other things, as a storehouse. During renovation in 1952 the mansard roof was replaced with a hipped one, and only traces of wall paintings survived inside. In 2014 the manor was bought by a new private owner, and in 2017 it was renovated, regaining white plaster and a new roof. The 19th-century Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland described it as a "fortified castle, now converted into a manor" with extensive cellars.

Tripto tips

The manor is private property with no regular visiting – view it from the road or from the church, without entering the grounds. A quarter of an hour is enough for the façade, about half an hour with the church. The building is best seen in early spring and late autumn, when the park trees are bare. Opposite stands the wooden Church of St Andrew from around 1585 with an early Baroque high altar, and by the school grows a lime tree of about 180 years, which local tradition links with Napoleon's troops marching through in 1812. The visit combines easily with the castle in Zator, a few kilometres away.