Goluchow Castle

Goluchow was a sixteenth-century fortified manor until Izabela Dzialynska, daughter of Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, rebuilt it between 1872 and 1885 with French architects into a house in the manner of the Loire chateaux - steep roofs, dormers, a turreted silhouette - and installed in it a museum of her own collection. That collection was serious: she assembled one of the finest holdings of Greek painted vases in Europe, along with enamels, ivories and arms, and Goluchow vases are still cited in the literature. Much of it was dispersed or lost during the Second World War and what remains is divided between here and the National Museum in Warsaw, so the house today shows a reconstructed version of the display. Around it lies an arboretum of about a hundred and sixty hectares laid out at the same time, one of the largest in Poland, with a European bison enclosure managed alongside it.

History

The castle was built in 1550-1560 for Rafał Leszczyński, voivode of Brześć Kujawski, as a defensive residence with towers at its corners, and his son Wacław enlarged it. In 1853 Count Tytus Działyński bought the partly run-down castle for his son Jan and his wife, Princess Izabela Czartoryska, and it was rebuilt in 1872-1885 in French Renaissance style to designs by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc with Maurycy Ouradou and Zygmunt Gorgolewski; in 2016 the State Treasury bought it from the Princes Czartoryski Foundation (Wikipedia, Gołuchów Castle).

The main sights

• A Loire-style rebuild - a Renaissance manor turned chateau in the 1870s.
• The vase collection - what survives of one of Europe's best Greek vase holdings.
• A 160-hectare arboretum - among the largest in Poland, laid out with the house.
• A bison enclosure - kept in the park alongside.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Practical notes

Much of the original collection was lost in the war; the display is a partial reconstruction. Interiors are seen on a guided route. Closed Mondays. The arboretum is large and needs its own time.

Nearby

Kalisz is twenty kilometres south-east; Pleszew is west.

Key facts