Sorkwity Palace

The palace in Sorkwity, about 12 kilometres west of Mrągowo, looks like a medieval red-brick castle — although in fact it is a neo-Gothic residence from the mid-19th century. It stands on an isthmus between lakes Gielądzkie and Lampackie, a place with old defensive traditions: Grand Master Winrich von Kniprode granted these lands in 1379 as knightly estates to the von Oelsen brothers, and Hans von Oelsen raised a wooden watchtower here to protect the village from Lithuanian raids.

From the Bronikowski manor to the Mirbach palace

In 1788 the hussar major Jan Zygmunt Oppeln-Bronikowski built the first manor here. From 1804 the estate belonged to the von Mirbach family, for whom Juliusz Ulrich von Mirbach erected the palace in 1850–1856 in the English neo-Gothic style then fashionable in Prussia — with pseudo-machicolations, bastions and an octagonal tower, alongside a fortress-like carriage house and a landscape park. On the peninsula of Lake Lampackie alleys, a vineyard and the family cemetery were laid out. On the night of 26–27 August 1914, before the battle of Tannenberg, the Russian troops of General Samsonov quartered in the palace burned the residence down — only the main walls survived.

Rebuild and today

The estate was inherited by Baron Bernard von Paleske, who rebuilt the palace in 1922–1923 under the Berlin architect Otto Rüger, following the original design exactly. After 1945 the building housed a state-farm kindergarten, warehouses and a holiday resort of the Warsaw Ursus works. Since 1998 the complex has been in private hands: a hotel operates in the restored interiors, and a stylish restaurant in the former carriage house. A Japanese ginkgo grows by the palace, and a walk along the shore of Lake Lampackie makes a good addition to a visit on the Masurian route between Mrągowo and Biskupiec.