Tum Collegiate Church

The collegiate church at Tum was consecrated in 1161 and is one of the largest and least altered Romanesque buildings in Poland: granite and sandstone, two round western towers, two square eastern ones, a tall nave with very small windows, standing by itself on a slight rise in open fields with no town around it. There was a town - Leczyca's early stronghold was here, and a national assembly met at Tum in 1180 - but it moved. Inside, in the western apse, is a wall painting of Christ in Majesty from the twelfth or early thirteenth century, among the oldest surviving in the country, and the north portal has a carved tympanum of the Virgin from the same period. The building was badly damaged in 1939 and restored in the 1950s in a way that stripped later additions and returned it to something like its Romanesque state, which is why it reads so plainly now.

What you actually see

• A granite church of the 1140s - four towers, tall nave, very small windows.
• Christ in Majesty - a wall painting in the western apse, among Poland's oldest.
• The north portal tympanum - a carved Virgin of the same period.
• Open fields - no town around it; the settlement moved to Leczyca.

When to go

April to October. Two hours.

Honest expectations

Opening depends on a keyholder outside service times and can be unpredictable. The interior is dim and the painting hard to see without good light. The 1950s restoration removed later fabric, which some visitors find sterile.

Nearby

Leczyca castle is three kilometres away; an open-air museum sits beside the church.