Karniowice Manor House

The chapel in the manor park at Karniowice was consecrated on 12 May 1624, when the village belonged to Jerzy Pipan — a doctor of medicine and law, a Kraków city councillor and a lecturer at the universities of Kraków and Padua. Today the manor complex with its park and the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene are listed heritage monuments. The village sits at the mouth of two well-known Kraków valleys, Dolina Bolechowicka and Dolina Kobylańska, so the manor fits easily into a short outing from Kraków.

History: from a duke to the Mieroszewskis

Karniowice first appears in the records in 1286, when Duke Leszek the Black granted the formerly ducal village to Sułek of Niedźwiedź, castellan of Kraków. In 1440 King Władysław of Varna moved it to Magdeburg law, and over the following centuries the estate passed through the hands of the Morsztyn, Ossoliński, Meciszewski and Bartynowski families. In 1836 it was bought by Stanisław Mieroszewski, a former marshal of the Kraków district, and it is his family that restored the manor chapel.

The chapel that stored hay

Mieroszewski found the chapel in poor shape: it was being used to store hay, and no mass had been said there for more than ten years. He restored the interior, added statues of the Evangelists and a new painting of Our Lady of Częstochowa, and in 1860 obtained permission for services to resume. In 1878 Count Sobiesław Mieroszewski revived the annual church fair held on 18 November. It was not the first restoration either — back in 1666 the chapel had been repaired by Father Stanisław Wojeński, a Kraków canon and the lord of the village at the time.

Tripto tip

The manor and chapel make a short stop rather than a full day out. There are no publicly announced opening hours for the interiors, so plan to view them from outside and respect the private grounds. The best way is to combine the visit with a walk: there is a free car park on ul. Skalna in Karniowice, next to the Millennium Cross with views over the area, and from there a loop of about 2.7 km leads past the Bolechowice Gate rock formation (around 1 hour on foot). The yellow trail (from Ojców National Park through the Bolechowicka and Kobylańska valleys), the green trail (from Bolechowice past the Bolechowice Gate) and the "birch" cycling route from Zabierzów also pass through the village.