Palaces

Sławików Palace

Even as a ruin, the palace in Sławików in the Rudnik commune near Racibórz impresses: it is the largest palace in Racibórz county, with a 62-metre facade of 19 window axes. The exact date of its construction has not been established — scholars have pointed successively to the third quarter of the 19th century and to its end, while German sources speak of a much longer history of a building remodelled in the second half of the 19th century.

From the Eichendorffs to the Eikstedts

Between 1795 and 1831 the palace belonged to the Eichendorff family; its single-storey form of that period is known from a lithograph published in 1856 in a Berlin architecture journal. In 1856–1865 Ernest von Eikstedt enlarged the residence in the eclectic spirit with dominant neo-classical accents: a columned portico with a triangular pediment, square towers at both ends of the facade and an orangery shaped as an arcade gallery, beneath which the former brewery was located. The Eikstedt family held the palace until 1945, when fighting between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army for the Łubowice bridgehead damaged the building.

A ruin with a future

Under the People's Republic the palace belonged to a state farm — its furnishings were looted and the roofless building slowly decayed. The vaulted cellars, barrel and cross-barrel vaults of the ground floor, column capitals and niches for sculptures survive to this day. The complex includes a 6-hectare park, the ruin of a neo-Gothic Eikstedt funerary chapel and a brick granary from around 1800. Since 2005 the owner has been the Rudnik commune, which has been securing the site since 2018: the grounds have been fenced since spring 2020 and are opened on Sundays during the tourist season. Revitalisation plans include a viewing terrace on the tower, a museum and a café in the orangery cellars.