Ruiny Pałacu w Daszowie

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• Historical landmark
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• Poland

Five centuries of a Silesian estate

The village of Daszów is first recorded in 1309, when its tithe was assigned to the collegiate chapter at Głogów. By the mid-16th century the estate belonged to the Lassote family, and in 1563 it was bought by Oswald von Tschammer, who also acquired the neighbouring Psary. The Tschammers held Daszów for more than two centuries, and it was Georg Ernst von Tschammer, the first Prussian district head of the Wołów region, who around 1727–1729 had the neglected manor rebuilt in the Baroque style and set his family's coat of arms above the entrance doors.↗↗

Ownership changed hands steadily over the following generations: from the Tschammers to the von Lieres, then to the von Adelstein family, to the Friedel household, to a Spanish royal consul named Helm, and finally, from 1906, to the Counts von Saurma-Jeltsch — the widow Hedwiga being a daughter of the powerful Schaffgotsch clan — who lived at the palace up to about 1930. The last major remodelling, giving the building much of the form seen in old postcards, took place around the turn of the 20th century.↗↗

After the Second World War the estate was taken over by the Polish state. A school was set up in part of the former residence as early as 1946, but the upper storeys were left unused and gradually vandalised; by the late 1970s the building was a registered heritage monument yet increasingly abandoned. In the early 21st century the roof and then the floors collapsed, reducing the stately home to the ruin visitors see today.

What the ruins reveal

The palace was a brick, rendered structure built on an L-shaped plan, rising two and three storeys under steep gable roofs. Its principal entrance faced east through a low projecting bay with a columned portal and a crowned gable flanked by pilasters, while the facades were articulated by pilasters and the windows dressed with decorative surrounds. Inside, some rooms had been vaulted and most carried flat ceilings with moulded borders, though today the surviving ceilings have largely fallen in.↗↗

What remains is the broader palace-and-farm ensemble rather than the building alone. To the west lies the former farmyard with its outbuildings — the gate, the servants' quarters, the steward's house, a granary, cattle sheds and storehouse all form part of the protected complex — while to the east stretches a large pond with an island built of stone. A landscape park, laid out around the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and entered through a listed gate and fence, wraps around the north and east of the grounds, lending the ruin a suitably romantic, overgrown setting.↗↗↗

Planning a visit

Daszów sits about 20 kilometres south of the district town of Góra, reached by heading southwest from Góra on the DK323 and turning onto a local road through Ryczeń, Zawiszów and Psary. The palace-farm complex lies in the centre of the village, just to the west of the main street, and you can pull up on a side lane running across the old farmyard close to the ruins.↗

The site is open and unfenced, so the exterior, park and pond can be viewed freely at any time of day. The collapsed interiors are not secured against entry and are dangerous, so admire the structure from outside and keep to the grounds. There are no ticket booths, facilities or marked trails here — this is a genuine, unpolished heritage ruin, which is precisely why it appeals to travellers drawn to the lost palaces of Lower Silesia.↗↗↗