OTMĘT CASTLE, RUINED BUILDING IN THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE COURTYARD

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

CURRENT STATE

T

he gen­er­al opin­ion is that the brick cas­tle in Ot­męt was prob­a­bly built by one of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the von Stral (Strze­la) fam­i­ly, which owned the vil­lage be­tween 1316 and 1514. On the oth­er hand, the old­est ar­ti­fact found in the ru­ins, which is a frag­ment of a tile with the date 1516, may in­di­cate its slight­ly lat­er met­ric. It could al­so be that the new­er cas­tle was built on the site of an old­er strong­hold, prob­a­bly a me­dieval de­fen­sive manor, the con­struc­tion of which leg­ends at­tribute to the Knights Tem­plar or­der (there is no his­tor­i­cal ev­i­dence to prove this the­sis). How­ev­er, the 13th-cen­tu­ry ori­gin of the cas­tle for­ti­fi­ca­tions may be in­di­cat­ed by ge­om­e­try of the tow­er (now a church tow­er) and lo­ca­tion of res­i­den­tial build­ings along the walls, typ­i­cal of that pe­ri­od.

THE CHURCH OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY'S ASSUMPTION WITH AN OLD CASTLE TOWER

GATE TOWER, AN OUTLINE OF THE OLD ENTRANCE PORTAL IS CLEARLY VISIBLE

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n the 16th and 17th cen­turies, the strong­hold be­longed to a num­ber of un­re­lat­ed Si­le­sian fam­i­lies and was re­peat­ed­ly mod­ern­ized. In 1514 it was bought by Lu­cas Buch­ta von Buch­titz of the Odro­wąż coat of arms (d. 1532). His heir was the el­dest son, Buch­ta von Buch­titz us­ing the sur­name Bil­ic­ki (d. 1582). At that time the build­ing was re­designed in Re­nais­sance style and adapt­ed to serve as the fam­i­ly's head­quar­ters.

ROUNDEL IN THE SOUTHWESTERN PART OF THE CASTLE

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n 1608 Georg Buch­ta, the last male de­scen­dant of the Ot­męt own­ers, died. His wid­ow Ju­dith Czet­tritz mar­ried Jo­hann von Re­den of Krap­kow­ice, then around 1630 she sold the old and al­ready de­te­ri­o­rat­ed cas­tle to Wen­zl von Reis­witz (d. 1638). Af­ter his death, the es­tate re­mained in the hands of his wid­ow, and then passed to her son Hein­rich von Prit­twitz (d. 1680). The daugh­ter of Hein­rich and Ur­su­la Hed­wig von Die­bitsch, He­le­ne Con­stance in 1690 sold Ot­męt to Jul­ius Le­o­pold Ho­ditz (d. 1693), af­ter whose death the cas­tle was in­her­it­ed by his son Carl Jo­seph (d. 1741). From him the es­tate was bought in 1695 by his step­moth­er, Su­sanne Po­lyx­e­na de do­mo von Mans­feld, pay­ing 20,000 thal­ers for it. The next own­er was Mag­da­lene En­gel­burg von Ko­tulirf­s­ki (d. 1751), the wife-to-be of Bal­tha­sar Lud­wig von Lar­isch (d. 1702), who re­ceived the prop­er­ty as a mar­riage dowry. In 1723, that is af­ter Lud­wig's death, Mag­da­lene ced­ed part of the cas­tle in­clud­ing the tow­er to the Ot­męt parish, re­ceiv­ing 2,403 thalers in re­turn.

CASTLE AND CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE XVIII CENTURY, FRIEDRICH BERNHARD WERNER: "TOPOGRAPHIA SILESIAE" 1744-68

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ne of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the von Lar­isch fam­i­ly re­designed the res­i­dence in the Baroque style, and we can see the ef­fect of this trans­for­ma­tion in the sketch­es made by Si­le­sian draughts­man Frie­drich Bern­hard Wern­er (see above). Pre­sum­ably, how­ev­er, al­ready in the sec­ond half of the 18th cen­tu­ry the build­ing proved un­in­hab­it­able due to its poor tech­ni­cal con­di­tion and was aban­doned, and the ma­te­ri­al from its de­mo­li­tion was used, among oth­er things, to ren­o­vate the church stand­ing near­by. Af­ter 1771, the Ot­męt es­tate be­longed to Count Frie­drich von Pück­ler, who ran in­to fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties, so that at a bailiff auc­tion in 1799 Ernst Jo­achim von Stra­ch­witz (d. 1826) ac­quired it for 60,000 thalers. Sub­se­quent own­ers of the cas­tle were: from 1800 - Phil­ipp von Thun, and from 1815 - Jo­seph Frie­drich Mar­ti­ni.

THE RUINED CASTLE IN PHOTOS FROM 1929

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f­ter 1839, Ot­męt be­longed to re­tired Prus­sian ma­jor Franz von Wyschet­z­ki (d. 1848), and then to his wid­ow Hen­ri­et­ta de do­mo Heythuy­sen and son Os­car. By this time the aban­doned cas­tle was a com­plete ru­in. In 1867 it was pur­chased (along with oth­er es­tates) by Baron von Thiele­man for 220,000 thalers, but just two years lat­er it be­came the owner­ship of Counts von Pück­ler. In 1929, then-own­er of Ot­męt Count von Spon­nek sold his lo­cal prop­er­ty to Czech in­dus­tri­al­ist Tomáš Ba­ta (founder of fa­mous Ba­ta shoe brand, d. 1932). His son, al­so To­máš (d. 2008), was pre­sum­ably the last pre-war own­er of the ru­ins.

CASTLE RUINS IN THE 1930S

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

CURRENT STATE

D

ue to the fact that ar­chae­o­log­i­cal in­ves­ti­ga­tions have nev­er been car­ried out here, lit­tle is known to­day about the ap­pear­ance of the cas­tle and its spa­tial lay­out at the time of the first own­ers. It prob­a­bly con­sist­ed of stone cur­tain wall erect­ed on an ir­reg­u­lar po­lyg­o­nal plan, a one-sto­ry main house stand­ing by the north­ern wall, a sec­ond south­ern build­ing, and a gate tow­er built in­to the south­east­ern cor­ner. De­fen­sive fea­tures of the cas­tle were strength­ened by a semi­cir­cu­lar ar­til­le­ry bas­tion pro­trud­ing to the west, open to the court­yard, as well as a main tow­er, square at the bot­tom and oc­tag­o­nal above, which was sold to the parish in 1732 and has been func­tion­ing as a church tow­er ev­er since.

PLAN OF THE CASTLE AND CHURCH: 1. GATE TOWER, 2. MAIN HOUSE, 3. SOUTH BUILDING, 4. ROUNDEL, 5. MAIN TOWER, 6. CHURCH

THE RUIN OF THE MAIN (NORTHERN) HOUSE

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

CURRENT STATE

W

hat has sur­vived from the old cas­tle is the cur­tain wall with a semi­cir­cu­lar roun­del, relics of the north­ern house up to the height of the sec­ond floor, with frag­ments of a chim­ney and traces of bar­rel vaults in the base­ment, re­mains of the south­ern build­ing, as well as ru­ins of the gate tow­er and, of course, the for­mer cas­tle tow­er, now part of the Church of the Blessed Vir­gin Mary's As­sump­tion.

The area is en­closed. The east­ern wall with a gate tower can be seen from the site of the church, and the west­ern wall with a roun­del can be seen from the site of the park, which is un­for­tu­nate­ly very ne­glect­ed. The fence sur­round­ing the ru­ins is in very poor con­di­tion, al­low­ing ac­cess to the court­yard. How­ev­er, it could be il­le­gal.

We need about half an hour to tour the cas­tle ruins from the out­side, in­clud­ing the church (al­so in­side).

CASTLE RUINS IN OTMĘT, FROM TOP AND LEFT: A FRAGMENT OF THE SOUTH BUILDING,
THE WALL BY THE MAIN (NORTH) HOUSE, THE EAST WALL AS SEEN FROM THE SIDE OF THE CHURCH

GETTING THERE

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he ru­in is sit­u­at­ed on the right bank of the Oder Riv­er, in the Ot­męt dis­trict, which was once an in­de­pen­dent set­tle­ment. Driv­ing from the cen­ter of Krap­kow­ice, about 600 me­ters be­hind the riv­er turn left in­to Pia­stow­ska Street lead­ing to­wards the church. The near­est train sta­tion is lo­cat­ed in the town of Go­go­lin (4 km).

There are some park­ing lots on Fran­cisz­ka Duszy Street: in front of the church and by the shop­ping pavil­ions.

With the bikes, we can walk up to the cas­tle wall (be­ware of bro­ken glass in the park!)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Z. Bandurska: Ruiny zamku w Otmęcie, PP Pracownie Konserwacji Zabytków 1980
2. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
3. A. Wagner: Murowane budowle obronne w Polsce X-XVIIw., Bellona 2019

CHURCH OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY'S ASSUMPTION
RUINS OF THE KNIGHT'S CASTLE ARE HIDDEN JUST BEHIND IT

Castles nearby:
Krapkowice - Baroque castle from the 17th century, 2 km
Rogów Opolski - Renaissance castle from the 16th/17th centuries, 9 km
Moszna - eclectic palace (called a castle) from the 19th century, 18 km
Głogówek - Renaissance castle from the 16th century, 19 km
Prószków - Renaissance castle from the 16th century, 19 km
Chrzelice - 13th century castle of the Knights of St. John, redesigned, 21 km
Opole Górka - relics of a 14th-century ducal castle, 24 km
Opole - relics of a 13th-century ducal castle, 25 km
Strzelce Opolskie - ruins of a ducal castle from the 14th century, 27 km
Biała - Renaissance castle from the 16th century, 28 km
Kędzierzyn-Koźle - relics of a 14th-century ducal castle, 28 km
Ujazd - ruins of a 13th-century bishop's castle, 37 km
Prudnik - relics of a 13th century knight's castle, 38 km
Dąbrowa - Renaissance castle from the 17th century, 39 km
Niemodlin - ducal castle from the 13th-17th centuries, 40 km
Polska Cerkiew - Renaissance castle from the 17th century, 40 km
Łąka Prudnicka - ruins of a 15th-century ducal castle, 41 km

text: 2022
photographs: 2020
© Jacek Bednarek