Duszniki Paper Mill

The mill at Duszniki was rebuilt in 1605 after a flood and has made paper on the same site ever since, which makes it one of the oldest surviving paper mills in Europe still in operation. The building is timber-framed with a distinctive tall shingled drying loft, and inside is a room known as the Baroque hall with painted decoration and a domed ceiling, unusual for an industrial building of the period and a sign of how profitable papermaking was. It became a museum in 1968 and is the main paper museum in Poland, showing the whole handmade process - rag preparation, pulping, forming sheets on a mould, pressing, drying - and it still produces handmade paper commercially, with watermarks. Visitors can form and press their own sheet in a workshop. It is a Historic Monument of Poland and has been proposed for wider international recognition. The town around it is a small spa where Chopin gave concerts as a boy.

Highlights

• A mill working since 1605 - among the oldest still producing in Europe.
• A painted domed hall - baroque decoration inside an industrial building.
• The handmade process - pulping, forming, pressing and drying, shown in full.
• Make your own sheet - a workshop where visitors form and press paper.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Practical notes

Workshops need booking and are busy with school groups in term time. Closed Mondays. The building is old and access is not level throughout. The town is small and quiet.

Nearby

Kudowa-Zdroj is west; the Table Mountains are north.