Wojanów Palace

The palace stands raised behind a circular approach area with two ramped drives and sits on a high plinth. Its footprint is roughly square and the main block rises to three principal storeys plus a mezzanine. Internally the layout runs as two parallel wings with three principal divisions, creating a compact, formal plan that reflects its successive remodellings from the Renaissance to the 19th century. The masonry of the main block displays heavy rustication on its exterior faces and a crenellated parapet crowns the roofline, a visible echo of the 19th‑century Neo‑Gothic vocabulary applied to the older walls.

A hipped roof, described in some accounts as steeply pitched, covers the main volume. Each corner of the building is marked by a cylindrical tower set as a small recessed alcove, creating a rhythmic profile at the edges of the block. The entrance side is emphasised by a high projecting central section (risalit, projecting central section), and the garden or south face opens onto a broad terrace reached by lateral stair flights. The court elevation retains a double entrance portal richly decorated with sixteen coats of arms that belong to members and kin of the von Zedlitz family, and the lower floor still shows original window surrounds and an internal stone doorway giving access to the cellar.

Several later additions and service buildings accompany the palace. Flanking low annexes end in small garden pavilions, and a late‑Baroque manager’s house stands within the ensemble. The former farmyard or economic yard formed part of the estate complex and, following restoration, accommodates conference facilities, guest rooms and a wellness area. The historic fabric shows both preserved 19th‑century architectural detailing, such as door pediments and wall panels with medallions set between pilasters decorated with acanthus leaves, and losses: many original furnishings were removed or destroyed in the postwar years and in the 2002 fire, though some decorative painting survived.

Interior survivals include a dining room with late‑classical polychrome decoration and a ballroom located in one of the upper tower storeys that retains ornamental painted vaulting and polychromy despite wartime plundering and the later conflagration. The building’s decorative scheme therefore combines elements from the late 18th and 19th centuries alongside the older structural shell that dates back to the Renaissance rebuilding and earlier phases.

The grounds form a large park laid out in the 1830s–1840s with designs attributed to Peter Joseph Lenné. A circular planting area marks the principal entrance and a formal southern pleasure ground of lawn, shrubs, flowers and a reflecting pond sits close to the terrace. Beyond this, an English‑style landscape park sweeps along the banks of the Bóbr River, creating visual links to the neighbouring Schloss Łomnica and providing framed views toward the Giant Mountains and the peak of Śnieżka. At the heart of the central flower rondel stands a fountain dated 1790 that was relocated from Schloss Reibersdorf. A long linden avenue runs from the manager’s house to a former belvedere known as the “Iceberg” viewpoint, and another former lookout stood on the “Cow Hill.” During the 21st-century restoration the park and grounds were reconstructed following historical models, and the palace park participates in the Garden Culture Route that crosses the Neisse.