Bąkowiec Castle (Morsko)

No road led to the upper castle: you climbed a system of walkways and ladders fixed to the rock. The ruins of Bąkowiec Castle stand on a limestone crag called Tygrys ("Tiger") in Skarżyce, a district of Zawiercie, and have been linked with the nearby village of Morsko since the Middle Ages. It is one of the smaller castles on the Trail of the Eagles' Nests, a chain of medieval strongholds across the Polish Jura, but its list of owners is turbulent and its 20th-century story distinctly odd.

History: knights, kings and a string of owners

The village of Morsko was recorded as early as 1220, but much less is known about the castle. The first timber stronghold may have been built in the 14th century by the Toporczyk family, known from this estate as the Morski; they had a reputation as robber knights, and in 1327 King Władysław the Short confiscated Morsko from them. The castle first appears in records as Bancowecz in 1389, and in the summer of 1391 it was taken by the troops of King Władysław Jagiełło in his war with Duke Władysław of Opole. Afterwards it changed hands repeatedly: in 1434 it was sold for 500 marks and a horse worth 100 marks. Around 1500 the Włodek family is said to have built a new stone castle, and by the 17th century it was already a ruin.

A villa inside the walls

Around 1927 the architect Witold Czeczott-Danilewicz bought the hill and, before 1933, built a house using the castle walls. After the war the villa passed to a coal-industry company from Zabrze, which turned the site into a holiday centre with a café, a terrace and a ski lift. The ruins were conserved in 1959–1961 and listed as a monument in 1967. Since 2015 the castle has been looked after by a local heritage society, the Zawiercie Region Friends' Society.

What to see

The castle was laid out as an irregular polygon on the small top of the rock. Look for fragments of the stone gate that led into a small walled courtyard, and traces of rooms on opposite sides of the crag. Semicircular towers for observation and defence stood at the corners. Note the masonry technique: the outer faces were built of carefully fitted limestone blocks, with a core of rubble bound with plenty of lime mortar.

Tripto tip

The ruins stand within the grounds of the "Morsko Plus" holiday centre (ul. Zamkowa 70, Skarżyce) and, according to the regional tourism portal, can be seen seasonally and only from outside. Allow 20–30 minutes to walk round the crag and take photos, so combine it with a longer route. Two important hiking trails pass right by: the red Trail of the Eagles' Nests and the blue Trail of Jurassic Strongholds. Nearby are the Rzędkowice and Kroczyce rocks, popular with climbers, and the tourist base at Podlesice.