The Palaces and park complex in Ostromecko is a residential complex, including two palaces and a park, located in Ostromecko, Kuyavian–Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland. It has been owned since 1996 by the city of Bydgoszcz. The ensemble is a regional cultural and recreational centre. It is notable for its rococo and neoclassical architecture, its history, and its art collections, including a significant collection of historic pianos.
Location The complex of palaces and park of Ostromecko is located in a suburban village of Bydgoszcz, in Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship, Poland. The ensemble sits on a slope of the Vistula, east of Fordon and from the city centre of Bydgoszcz.
Characteristics The facility consists of a park, centered on two palaces. The smaller Old Palace, aka the Mostowski Palace, is a baroque palace that dates back to the mid-18th century. Its windows and terrace overlook the Vistula valley and the Wielka Kępa nature reserve.
The larger one, the New Palace or the Schönborn Palace, is a Neoclassical architecture residence built between 1832 and 1848. The building was enlarged at the end of the 19th century with a two-story wing, a ballroom, and viewing terraces, combining Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque styles.
The area is surrounded by an English garden. At the bottom of the Old Palace lies one of the few examples of an Italian Renaissance garden in Poland. Both the park and the palaces have been included on the Kuyavian-Pomeranian monuments Heritage list. The Old Palace and the park were added in 1955, and the New Palace was added in 1991. The park is also on the List of parks and historic gardens in Poland.
The property belongs to the commune of Bydgoszcz. It is managed by the city's Municipal Cultural Center. The complex is regularly used for a variety of events: concerts, theater performances, art exhibitions, vernissages, conferences, meetings, banquets and symposiums. The Ostromecko Complex comprises a 22-room hotel, a restaurant (Pałacowa), and conference rooms. The Old Palace also houses a piano museum and the park hosts regularly outdoor events and historical reconstructions. During weekends, a summer cafe is open on the terrace. In the New Palace, different spaces are available for organizing events: ballroom (for 200 people, connected to the terrace); gold room (90 seats, connected to the terrace); green room (80 seats, with a view upon the English garden); fireplace (50 seats); pistachio room (35 seats, view upon the English garden); Italian salon (10 seats, with a balcony).
Old Palace
The Old Palace, also known as the Mostowski Palace, stands on the edge of the plateau overlooking the Vistula valley, where a noble manor house once stood. There used to be picnics at the end of hunting parties in this place, hence its second nickname, the Hunter's Palace. Fragments from the original mansion (17th century) are still preserved, such as the stone wall strengthening the palace on the ravine side of the hill and the semicircular corner tower. The two-story baroque mansion with Saxon Rococo elements was built in 1759-1766 by Paweł Michał Mostowski (1721-1766), general-lieutenant of the army of the Crown(1758) and Voivode (1758-1766) who was part of the Bar Confederation.
The square brick building has three stories with a mezzanine, an unused attic and an area of . The basement has a stone barrel vault ceiling. The façades are adorned with columns, pilasters, and stuccoed windows. The northern façade offers an observation deck with a view over the Italian garden, reaching all the way down to the Vistula valley. The front façade displays a small stone balcony over the entrance and an avant-corps framed by two pairs of pilasters, topped with a triangular pediment. The Mansard roof, covered with slate tiles, is crowned with a Piast Eagle sculpture. The interiors house fragments of stucco decorations and an openwork balustrade in the hall. Since 2000, the palace has hosted the Andrzej Szwalbe collection of Historic Pianos.
New Palace
The New Palace, which faces the main entrance to the Palace and Park ensemble, is located in the eastern part of the park. The New Palace was originally neoclassical, but eclectic features were added later. The main body is rectangular, with a slight avant-corps at the front and a rear façade closed by a terrace. The palace is two stories high with a basement, and its gable has a low hip roof. A neo-baroque, two-level hunting mansion with a mansard roof chapel was added to the south, connected to the palace with a two-story gallery. The ballroom is on the northern side of the New Palace.
The interiors feature well-preserved original stucco decorations. A series of terraces ornament the New Palace on the side facing the park, penned by a retaining wall with a balustrade. Pergolas with Corinthian and Tuscan style columns decorate the northwestern and southern ends of the park. The New Palace, which is significantly larger than its older neighbour, has a building footprint of .
Park The park in Ostromecko surrounds both palaces and partially covers the edge of the Vistula valley. It consists of two distinctive sections, one of which is Italian in style and the other is English.
The Italian garden, which was created at the beginning of the 18th century around the Mostowski Palace, stretches over three terraces down to the Vistula River. Stairs provide access to each level. A chestnut alley connects to the Italian garden from the south. From the north, a hornbeam path leads to three terrace gardens descending with steps towards the escarpment. At the bottom stretches a four-row alley of linden trees ending with an oval pool which was once fed by a fountain. Pattern-plot plantings are present on either side of the walkway.
The English garden is near the New Palace: it was created in the 1830s by Peter Joseph Lenné, a renowned Prussian royal gardener, who also assisted in creating the gardens of Sanssouci Park in Potsdam. It consists of a garden and a forested area, using the natural assets of the terrain. Much of the layout is made up of lawn clearings with picturesque terrain and trees. The distinctive look of the English garden relies heavily on monumental trees, relics of the Vistula oak-hornbeam forest, mainly little-leaf lindens and English oaks. These trees serve the dual purpose of defining the viewing perspective in front of the palace terrace and contributing to the overall look of the landscape together with lanes and ponds. It is complemented by a primeval forest set into the park. Clusters of oak-hornbeam dominate here, as well as enclaves of riparian woodland and alder carrs. A natural network that runs throughout the entire complex irrigates the whole system of gardens: it consists mainly a stream and four ponds called Kluczyki, encircled by lawns, shrubs, perennials and aquatic plants.
The park's trees vary widely in terms of both species and age. The most abundant varieties areash, horse chestnut, little-leaf linden, English oak, Norway spruce, Norway maple, and field maple.
An inventory from the 1990s lists 850 deciduous trees and roughly 180 conifers . Because of the exceptional age and diversity of the tree collection, several Natural monuments are registered there, including11 lindens, 17 English oaks, 26 horse chestnuts, 4 common beeches, 1 Norway maple, 1 white pine, 6 European white elms, 2 Cornish oaks and 1 black alder,
In the depths of the park also stands the neo-Romanesque mausoleum of the Schönborn and Alvensleben families. Both a pheasantry and a refuge for deer were present in the park. Orchards also grew near the Old palace; today, only relics (mainly crabapples and pears) can be found. In 2009, the Ostromecko Park was ranked second in a competition for the most beautiful park in Poland, organized by the company Briggs & Stratton. A comprehensive restoration of the complex (buildings and park) was completed in 2018.
Andrzej Szwalbe Collection of historic pianos Andrzej Szwalbe, a former director of the Pomeranian Philharmonic, created a collection of historic pianos in 1978. For many years, pianos were stored in the premises of the Pomeranian Philharmonic; but since 2000, the collection has been exhibited at the Old Palace. The collection includes wing pianos, table pianos, mixed pianos and other instruments, manufactured in the 19th century in Poland, Europe and United States.
In 2016, the Bydgoszcz Municipal Cultural Centre published a bilingual (Polish-English) catalog of the exhibition. Entitled "Andrzej Szwalbe Collection of Historic Pianos", it was written by Benjamin Vogel.
History Early period (13th-18th centuries)
The Old Palace was built on the site of a former knight's court, itself built during the 13th century. The name Ostromezk, that is, Ostromecko, appeared for the first time in 1222 in a document signed by Duke Konrad of Mazovia. Duke Konrad invited the Teutonic Order to assist him in his fight against the pagan Prussian tribes, resulting in Ostromecko being placed under the ownership of Teutonic knights from 1231 to 1475, ending a few years after the Second Peace of Toruń in 1466.
At the end of the Teutonic period, the manor house was owned by the Ostromęcki family from Pomian nobility. They later changed their name to Ostromecki. The family administered the neighbouring domains, with three family members each assuming control of a separate domain: Jakub Ostromecki at Ostromecko; Szymon Ostromecki at Izbice and Reptowo; Jan Ostromecki in Pawłowice. Some of the Ostromecki family members became servants at the royal court. One of them, Bartolomaeus Ostromecki, hetman and standard-bearer from Chełmno, was offered the village of Adsel (now Gaujiena) and the territory of Ruinen (today Rūjiena) in historical Livonia in 1585, by king Stephen Báthory, for his meritorious services. The Ostromęcki family also owned folwarks and Nowy Dwór estate, connected to Ostromecko, with land, windmills, craft workshops and livestock (sheep).
In 1624, after his marriage with Gertruda Ostromecka, Jakub's sister, Jan Dorpowski, a nobleman from Leliwa descent, took over the Ostromecko estates. He had a modest manor built and land plots scattered along the Vistula valley leased to Mennonite Olędrzy: Strzyżawa, Mała Kępa, Wielka Kępa, Rafa and Mozgowina. Around 1680, Katarzyna Dorpowska Leliwa married Paweł Mostowski from the Dołęga family, a chamberlain of Płock. Their only son, Bogdan Teodor Mostowski Dołęga, was castellan of Sierpc, Racia, Płock and took part to the Tarnogród Confederation. He inherited Ostromecko from his mother and Mostowo, Kuczbork-Osada in the Płock Voivodeship from his father. Bogdan wedded Ludwika Kruszyńska, from the castellan of Gdańsk. On May 27, 1708, the manor was entirely burned down as a consequence of the ongoing Great Northern War, and the property plundered by a unit of Swedish dragoons from the regiment led by Colonel Charles G. von Marschalck. In 1715, Jakub Dorpowski died and the manor changed hands, for the benefit of the Mostowski's.
Bogdan Teodor Mostowski had a new house built, as depicted on the Ostromecko panorama realized in 1738–1744 by Georg Friedrich Steiner: it was a one-story brick mansion with eight rooms and three cellars, surrounded by an Italian garden. The village comprised a farm with granaries, stables, a sheepfold, fish ponds, wind and watermill, a brewery, a distillery, a brickyard and an inn. At that time, the Ostromęcki estate included the following folwarks: Ostromecko, Izbica (now Nowy Dwór), Reptowo and the Olędrzy leased lands. In 1748, the estates of Ostromec and Masovia were bequeathed to Paweł Michał Mostowski Dołęga (1721–1781), voivode of Pomerania (1758–1763) and known for his ambitious and lavish life. Paweł Mostowski's career was supported by the Czartoryski family and Heinrich von Brühl, an influent Polish-Saxon statesman who helped him get the voivodship head and the Order of the White Eagle.