PIOTROWICE
The adjacent villages of Piotrowice and Chełmiec in the Jawor Plain are old strip-field villages with a linear character, where individual agricultural plots extended perpendicularly to the direction of the main settlement axis. This original spatial arrangement of fields has been preserved to this day, especially around Chełmiec. The documented beginnings of Chełmiec date back to the year 1202, while Piotrowice trace their history to 1250. Throughout history, Chełmiec experienced brief periods of revival in mining activities in the nearby Starucha Valley. A lasting remnant of this past is the hamlet of Jerzyków – the former 16th-century mining town of Sanct Georgenberg.
The main historical landmark in Piotrowice is the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, built in the Gothic style in the 13th century, reconstructed in the 17th century. Since the Napoleonic Wars, after a fire in 1813, it remained in ruins and was reconstructed in the 1950s. The palace, erected in the 1730s through the reconstruction of an older Renaissance manor, remains in ruins since the post-war period. The adjacent area of the former park with remnants of a pond has been developed into a recreational area. In Chełmiec, the only historical structure is the church of St. John the Baptist, in its current form from the 16th century, rebuilt in the 18th century. After the establishment of the palace-park complex, only partially ruined buildings of the former farmstead and a park with beautiful plane trees remain. From the slopes above the village, there are lovely views of the Sudeten Foothills.
Description: Piotr Migoń
