Palaces

Palace in Koszęcin

Late-classical residence in Lubliniec County, since 1953 the home of the Stanisław Hadyna Song and Dance Ensemble „Śląsk”. The site's history goes back to the Middle Ages, while the palace owes its present shape to the remodelling of 1829.

From castle to residence

The first record of Koszęcin comes from 1275. The lords of the village first lived in a wooden castle, destroyed by fire in 1603. Two years later Andrzej Kochcicki completed a brick stronghold with a tower and a castle chapel — the first brick church in the village — surrounded by a wall. In 1629 the Habsburgs confiscated the castle from an owner who had taken part in an uprising, and the estate changed hands several times. According to accounts, King John III Sobieski stayed here in the late 17th century; his wife Marysieńka was said to rest in the residence as the king set off for Vienna.

The Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen era

Between 1805 and 1945 the palace belonged to the ducal house of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen. In 1829 Ludwig Filip von Hohenlohe began a late-classical remodelling that shaped the present building; wall paintings, interior fittings and epitaphs in the castle chapel date from this period.

Home of Śląsk

Since 1953 the palace and park complex has housed the Song and Dance Ensemble „Śląsk”. Rehearsals, concerts and ceremonies take place in its halls, and in the courtyard stands a bench-monument to Stanisław Hadyna, pipe and the score of Helokanie in hand. Around the palace stretches a 19th-century landscape park with a pond, limes, beeches and oaks as well as exotic trees: the eastern white pine, London plane and Canadian hemlock.

Interior visits are limited; current rules are best checked on the ensemble's website.