Lubusz Nordic Walking Trails – In the land of water and natural peculiarities – Witnica, Lubiszyn and the surroundings

Witnicki Anioł RED, BLUE, PURPLE, GREEN, MAROON, BLACK TRAIL

Route: Vicinity of Witnica
Route type: scenic and historical
Difficulty level: Easy
Walking time: red 1h (3.5 km), blue 1.5h (5 km), violet 1.5h (6 km), green 2h (7.5 km), maroon 3.5h (13.5 km), black 2.5h (9 km)
Attractions: Interesting history of the town with its Drogowskazów park and brewery with medieval traditions

History

The earliest mention of Witnica dates back to 1262, when the fishing village Witze passed from the hands of the Templars to the direct rule of the Brandenburg Margraves. The name Witnica comes from the Polish word wić, witka, that is a willow branch or a kind of willow. Witnica was most probably founded by the Templars. The fishing village was gradually changing into a more industrialized town. Since the reformation, Witnica, a former Cistercian village, became a village with a royal farmhouse. Over the centuries the settlement acquired an urban character, which resulted in granting it town rights in 1935.

Economy

At the end of the 18th century. Witnica bloomed economically, with the establishment of a cloth factory and casting factory, as well as a machine factory. The casting manufactory was an important industrial facility in Witnica. Equipped with a large furnace, it produced barrels and cannon balls, and supplied cast iron for further processing to several nearby forges. Most of the inhabitants were fishermen, farmers and carters. In the first half of the 19th century traders of wood, hay, grain, cattle, and horses appeared in the village. The village became a center of local market covering the middle area of the right bank of Warta River located between Kostrzyn, Gorzów and Dębno. In 1811 the village of Witnica was granted an official status of a trade settlement with the right to organize one fair a year, in 1831 two fairs, and from 1848 – a few years after part of the peasants were enfranchised – also weekly fairs on Wednesdays, and from 1890 also on Saturdays. In the 1920s it was the largest village in Brandenburg, with a town hall, a magnificent district court building, the seat of the Lutheran church superintendency, a gasworks, a power plant, six brickyards, a brewery, several mills, sawmills and furniture, tile and starch factories. Despite many previous efforts, Witnica was granted town rights not earlier than in 1935.

Industry

After the implementation of Frederick II’s great program to regulate the Odra from Lubusz to the area of Cedynia and the Noteć and Warta from Drezdenko to Kostrzyn, Witnica experienced a favorable economic situation. The appearance of new agricultural and worker settlements in the drained areas of the former Warta marshes affected the demand for goods and craft services in the area.

From the 16th to the middle of the 19th century a paper mill functioned on the Witna River. In the middle of the 18th century an ironworks was established, which made orders for the army, and a cloth factory, which was closed down after the Seven Years’ War. In the second half of the 18th century as a result of melioration of swamps in Kotlina Gorzowska, as well as regulation and deepening of the Warta River, several new villages were created in the area, which increased Witnica’s economic rank as a trade settlement. At the same time the route of the Royal Prussian Post connecting Berlin with Königsberg was marked out. After the construction of the Eastern Railway in 1857, the name Vietz began to be supplemented with the name Ostbahn. The construction of railroad station contributed to the increase of Witnica’s importance as an industrial settlement. The cannon and ball foundry transformed into a machine factory, 6 brickyards, a tile, furniture, and starch factory were established, 4 sawmills, 3 water-electric mills, and 3 windmills operated. The elements for building the first Prussian (and one of the first in the world) steam machine were manufactured in Witnica.

Drogowskazów Park

Witnica is located on the former Prussian trade route. Postal stagecoaches from Berlin to Królewiec regularly sailed through Witnica. In 1657, Witnica became a station on that Royal Route. In 1857 it was connected to the railway line. The only "Drogowskazów Park and Słupów Milowych Cywilizacji" in Poland refers to this tradition in Witnica. This unique exposition is located in the park in the city center and it shows the city’ and municipality’s history from the perspective of great civilization route stretching from Bruges by the North Sea through Berlin, Witnica, and further to Königsberg and St Petersburg.

Brewery

The Witnica Brewery is one of the few breweries in Poland producing natural beer, not using industrial methods. The brewing traditions date back to the times of the Cistercians. The year 1848 is considered to be the date of the brewery’s establishment, when Ernst Ferdinand Handke leased the tavern and the brewhouse from the Feuerherm family. In 1856, Handke bought the tavern and brewery from the Feuerherm family. After rebuilding the plant in the second half of the 19th century the Witnica-based company became one of the most modern small breweries in the northern part of Germany. It operated then under the name Stern Brau.

After the Second World War the brewery was nationalized by the Polish state. After numerous changes of owners, in 1991 the brewery became independent under the name Zakład Piwowarski in Witnica. After the privatization in 1992, the brewery was transformed into an employee-owned company Zakłady Piwowarskie Witnica Sp. z o.o. In 1995, the company’s status was changed and a joint stock company, Browar Witnica S.A., was established. In 2000 the company’s name was changed to Boss Browar Witnica S.A.

Mościce Trail – Wielkie Lake BLACK TRAIL

Route: Mościce – Wielkie Lake – Mościce
Route type: scenic and historical
Difficulty level: easy
Walking time: 2.5h (9km)
Attractions: Mościce is a village with a medieval history the traces of which have not been preserved until today. It provides a good opportunity to find out more about the medieval principles of village founding and the categories of its inhabitants.

Mościce (German: Blumberg)

The village is a classic example of a village founded by margraves at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries and has a 13th century origin. The village was mentioned for the first time in 1295 in a document delimiting properties of Templars and Margraves. In a description from 1337, the village has a typical number of 64 lans, which is typical for large villages. One lane is about 18 ha. There are also 12 knight’s fields free of taxes, the owner of which was obliged by margrave’s order to provide a knight with a horse for war. There are also typical 4 lans ascribed to the church as well as an inn and a water mill. Originally its center was concentrated around a pond. In the interwar period, near the pond, Germans arranged a park, which has been recently refurbished. In the southern part of village there was an open coal mine in the 19th century, after which many pits and traces of a railroad track remained.

Name

The pre-war name Mościć (Blumberg) may have come from the knight Dietrich von Blomberg. The Polish name Mościce was derived from the Mutzsee Lake, which may have had a Slavic name Mośrze today Moszcze. Before the official name was accepted, Polish settlers used the names of Kwieciszewo, Kwiatów, Łasiczyn and Górczyn. Later, the northern part of the village (German: Sand) was called North Korea and the southern part South Korea, even though the latter had already been officially named Mokronosy.

Church and school

The existence of a church in Mościce can be inferred from the fact that in 1327, a "rector ecclesie parochialis" is mentioned, having income from Mościce. In 1538, there is mention of a church in Kamień Wielki, which is subsidiary to the parish in Mościce. The present beautiful stone and brick building, built on a cross plan, dates from 1886. The structure was created from reconstruction of an earlier church, also built of stone. The baroque tower, which is dated 1737, was repaired and renovated in 1834 and 1904. The school, which is located next to the church, was first mentioned in 1774. At the beginning of the 20th century there were two school buildings: smaller and larger. After the war the school was organized in the larger building. The building was demolished in the years of baby boom and a seven-class school was built on its place and the parsonage house. The smaller school building has been preserved and is now converted into an apartment building.

How a medieval village was created

In order to colonize an uninhabited or thinly populated area, a man who was entrusted with the task of founding a village, called a founder, would travel across the Odra River to overpopulated countries, where he would recruit candidates for landowners and, after bringing them there, would assign them settlements and fields. The fields were divided into three plots, where each of the landowners received his own plot. In those days, the system of fertilization and crop rotation was not yet known, which is why the three-field method was used. Winter crops were sown on one of the plots, spring crops and vegetables on the second, and the third plot rested as a fallow field, which was also an area of temporary pasture. On fertile lands, the colonists received one field each, but on sandy soils, such as those around Moscice, they received two, and sometimes even three and four fields. They did not own the land but leased it hereditarily, for which the country’s ruler demanded a fee in money. In addition to knightly fields, church lands and fields allocated as a compensation for fulfilling the office of a village leader were exempt from fees.

Categories of medieval village inhabitants

The peasants, who had their fields in the lowlands, constituted a kind of village aristocracy with specific rights, which determined their participation in decisions concerning the village, possibilities of leaving it and solving other life problems. They discussed them during their stay in the tavern, which at that time was also a kind of village common room. The second category of residents, who enjoyed fewer rights, were the crofters. They did not have the right to own land on the lowlands. Their plots of land were patches of farmland obtained from the forests and located on the edge of peasants’ fields. The rights of the also applied to blacksmiths, tailors, shoemakers, shepherds of cows, sheep and pigs, and churchmen, who were also teachers. Where the nobleman’s manor farm was maintained and developed, a third group of inhabitants emerged, even lower in the village hierarchy, namely farm workers. They were divided into cottagers, living in separate houses with a garden, people living in dormitories, i.e. multi-family buildings of the manor house and bailiffs, renting a chamber, as a small room in someone’s house, usually without a window.

Mayor

In villages inhabited by colonists, the village leaders usually came from the aldermen. Their task was to collect rent, extraordinary fees, such as military contributions or charges for the construction and maintenance of the Kostrzyn stronghold, to the treasury of the country’s ruler. They helped the church believers to collect tithe. Together with jurors or personally, they had police-judicial powers in minor offenses. They were obliged to host the "superior" during his stay in the village or his passage through it. Twice a year they provided horse-drawn carriages. But they also had privileges, including the right to fish in designated waters and use the allotted meadow, to obtain firewood from the forest. And when he received official guests, his neighbors were obliged to provide them with beer, fish or smoked poultry. The reeves were divided into those who were feudal lords, i.e., held their office upon the lord of the village and those who were dependent on him for a certain period of time.

Nowiński Wachlarz BLUE, GREEN, RED TRAIL

Route: beginning and end of the routes near the railroad station
Route type: scenic and historical
Difficulty level: easy
Walking time: blue 1h (3.5 km), green 1h (3.5 km), red 2h (7 km)
Attractions: The Warta River marshes are the area of the great civilization project of Frederick II. The Nowiny area is full of traces of this project, which consisted in reclamation of the lower Warta river marshes and settling the drained land.

Nowiny Wielkie

The village has existed within its present boundaries since September 30, 1929 and was created as a result of a government project of consolidating small villages into larger communities. It was the last stage of the great plan to develop Warciańskie marshes, which began in the 18th century and was carried out in three stages. The first, Oleder, stage was carried out in the 1920s. The settlements established at that time usually had names with the addition of word "Holländer.” The second stage dates back to the 1850s and the third from the 1860s to 1880s. The establishment of Nowiny Wielkie is related to the second stage. In the middle of the century, additional land for rye cultivation was sought and then Białcz, Białczyk and the oldest part of Nowiny Wielkie called Spiegel were created, including the area of today’s fire station, school, church and active cemetery as well as fields and meadows, bordering on the villages of former hop growers in Alt Hopfenbruch and Neu Hopfenbruch, which were polonized as Chmieliniec and today are part of Świerkocin in the vicinity of the ZOO Safari.

Nowiny – Poźrzadło

In the 18th century, 900 hectares of fields in a part of the present-day Nowiny were cleared and called Grosse Spiegel. Spiegel means "mirror" in old Polish. The project of founding the village was drawn up in 1730, but it was not until 1748 and 1749 that 35 German families brought from Poland settled here. In this part of the village the present brick church was built in 1856 on the place of the former timbered and thatched church from around 1768.

Nowiny – Karczowisko

The second, western part of village, where the railway station and the Dinosaur Park were later established, was called Döllensradung (Polish: Karczowisko). It was established in 1752 on the initiative of a royal forester from Pyrzany named Dölle, who, in order to secure his old age after the end of his state service, cleared the marshy terrain and established a farmhouse with 5 colonists’ families and a dwelling house for himself. On one of the maps of that time, the Segemühlenfluß was marked in this area, from which we can deduce that a small stream flowed here at that time, at which a sawmill moved by a waterwheel stood. In the middle of 18th century the fields of Döllensradung were crossed from west to east by the line of the Royal Eastern Railway, and in 1929 from north to south by the road connecting Pomerania with Silesia through the bridge over the Warta River in Swierkocin. The farm Döllensradug, which in time became a separate village next to Spiegel, was followed by the remnants of a cemetery located at the forest road between the Dinosaur Park and the village Pyrzany, with an impressive tombstone of Friedrich Schmidt and Emilie Schmidt.

Intricate stories with names

One of the problems solved was giving Polish names to towns, lakes, rivers and hills. Zaninim Dollenradung (Karczowisko Dollena) were called Nowiny Wielkie, they were called Dąbkowice, after the first village administrator Henryk Dąbkowski, and by others Jastrzębiec, Jastrzębnik or Jastrzębiec (in 1947 the name of the forester’s lodge Jastrzębiec was in use), still others used the name Mlecznik, and the railway station was renamed to Pieranie. In 1945, village names were polonized in Poznań according to the German name reform of 1928/1929. A state commission took care of it. Hence, in the number 59 from 1948, Spiegel was polonized as Poźrzadło, and Forst Spiegel as Poźrzadło Las. It was not until 1950, in number A-52 of the "Monitor Polski" that the Horstberg hill was officially polonised as Chełminy. Hohe Kupe Mountain (117 m) was changed to Kopa, and Schwarzenberg (91 m) to Czerniec. There it was also reported that the former Döllensradung estate was given the Polish name Karczowisko.

The Dinosaur Park

The dinosaurs in the Park are a very accurate reflection of the reptiles that once lived. There are 30 of them, made in cooperation with leading Polish palaeobiologists, based on scientific literature and many years of experience in this field. During the walk, in the forest, you can meet dinosaurs of various sizes, from small 1-meter long to 27-meter diplodocus. You can learn where and when they lived, what they ate, how they got food and how they defended themselves and their offspring. A trip into prehistory will certainly be an unforgettable experience and will provide everyone with many impressions.

Pyrzany

An old fishing village with Slavic origins, distinguished by five peculiarities. In German times from the fact that after a fire in the 18th century it was moved to a new place and built according to fire safety building plans, which did not protect it from another fire disaster. Then from the hamlet called Amt Pyrehne, which today is a part of Świerkocin (and there it is mentioned) and from the river harbor with the "glass house.”

Name

There are many hypotheses on the name origin: some derive it from Perun, a Slavic god of thunder, lightning and storms, others from wheat or couch-grass, and others from ‘by de Rehne’ – as the Germans used to call flooded coastal meadows here. The medieval Pyrene, Pirene, Pyren was reconstructed by Prof. Stanisław Kozierowski as Pieranie. In March 1945, the Poznań railway workers transferred this name to the nearby railway station Nowiny Wielkie, and so Pyrehne was also called Pierzany. The first Polish inhabitants of the village, not waiting for official decisions, began to call the village Fabianówka after the mayor Fabiański, and when newcomers from the Złoczów region settled there, they dreamed of the name Nowe Kozaki. However, in the same year, the Poznań Nomenclature Committee changed Pieranie into Pyrzany, and renamed the railway station and village where the station was located into Nowiny Wielkie.

History

In the Middle Ages, Pyrzany was a Piast fishing village located in the Lubusz castellany and diocese. The first record of its existence dates back to 1300, when Pyrzany was handed over to the Cistercian monastery in Mironice near Gorzów Wielkopolski. After the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), only 2 peasants’ farms remained in the village, and the abandoned land enabled establishment of a knight’s (junkier’s) farmhouse by the Marwitz family, located in the vicinity of a former windmill and later mill, of which the manor house from 1776 has survived until today. In the 20s of the 18th century, one of the owners of these farms established a cattle ranching settlement called Pyrehner Holländer on the marshes. On the maps from that period, a sheepfold can be seen to the west from the forester’s farm and a tar mill to the northeast. Behind it, in the area of today’s Dinosaur Park in Nowiny Wielkie, a forester from Pyrzany named Dölle cleared marshy areas and sand dunes and in 1752 established his small estate called Döllensradung.

Glass production

In the 18th century there were several glassworks operating in this area of the Nowa Marchia. The oldest, founded by Markus Zimmermann, was established in 1707 in Tarnów, north of Stare Dzieduszyce and Sosen. The glassworks needed a river port to float its products down the Warta River to Hamburg and Amsterdam, and this is where the son of the founder and current owner, Georg Zimmermann, became interested in Pyrzany. The company was expanding. In 1745 a smelter was established in Łośna near Kłodawa, in 1750 in Wałdowice on the Lubniewka River and in 1754 in Rybaków near Santoczno. As if those were not enough, the owner of Stanowice built his own glassworks in nearby Stanowiczki. When the flood embankment in the area of Świerkocin and Pyrzany cut off the connection of the Pyrzański Canal with the Warta River, Zimmermann moved his warehouse to the port in Świerkocin. In Pyrzany the warehouse was still standing in its old place in 1778. Nowadays, its traces in the form of broken glass can be found on the Maszówek Canal.

Church

The first information referring to the religious community in Pyrzany comes from 1718, when during the inventory of royal revenues the existence of a church was noted. The first accurate information about the appearance of a church in the village is connected with its fire and relocation to new settlements. It is only now that we find out about the intention to build a church from a plan from 1777, which proposed two locations for the church building. The new temple, built nine years after the fire, also had a timbered structure. A few years later the church gained the rank of a parish building with the villages belonging to it: Świerkocin, Amt Pyrehne, Białcz and Pszczelnik – today part of Białczyk, and Chmieliniec – today part of Nowin Wielkie. Half a century later the building burnt down in a fire in 1840, another timbered building stood there until 1900, when it was demolished and a new, brick one was erected thanks to Pastor Paul Rohrlach’s efforts.

Around Marwicko Lake RED TRAIL

Route: route around Marwicko Lake. Begins at the parking lot.
Route type: scenic and historical
Difficulty level: easy
Walking time: 2h (7.5 km)
Attractions: typical landscape of sand lands. Pine forests with lakes. Traces of glass-making and smelting traditions in the neighboring villages.

Marwicko (Roztocz)

A lake on the Gorzów Plain, north-west of Gorzów Wielkopolski, in the Lubusz Voivodeship, Gorzów County, Lubiszyn Municipality, with an area of 140.3 ha and a volume of 4863.6 thousand m3. It is a rather large lake, with a shallow average depth. The southern part of this lake is deeper, while the northern is characterized by extensive shallowing. The total basin of Marwicko Lake covers various terrain conditions: forests, meadows, marshlands and farmlands. The area is predominantly lowland, with a considerable percentage of wetlands – the drainage ditch network is very rich. Forests in the direct catchment belong to the Barlinecka Forest. The reservoir is quite intensively used for recreation in the season. There is a large beach on the southern shore, a forest camping site and a small restaurant. At the lake there are no recreational resorts. It has an inflow, which is a small drainage ditch, and an outflow, locally called Myślański Canal, which indirectly, through a system of drainage ditches, drains water to the Mysia River.

Marwice

Marwice (Marwitz). Here you will find a historic timbered smithy and a late-Romanesque church from the middle of the 13th century, built with the surrounding wall of granite blocks. Inside, in the attic, a Gothic polychromy from the middle of the 14th century was discovered. In the southeastern corner of the church nave, at a height of 5.20 m, on a red granite boulder measuring 29×32 cm, there is a mysterious chessboard (7 horizontal fields by 5.5 vertical ones), betraying the presence of the Templar Order.

Lubiszyn

Not much is known about the history of Lubiszyn. In 1707, a window glassworks with a factory settlement was established there. The first owner of the glassworks was Ludwig Zimmermann, after whom the settlement was named Ludwigsruh. At the beginning of the 20th century a railway line from Gorzów to Myśliborz was built and a railway station was established in Lubiszyn. During the war, in 1940-45, there was a prisoner-of-war camp, subordinated to Stalag III in Drzewice. In the village there is a neo-gothic red brick church built in 1857.

Sciechów

Ściechów, before the Second World War – Fahlenwerder. One of the longest villages in Poland. The village was founded in 1747 as a settlement associated with a glassworks. The church was opened in 1752, reconstructed several times. The present school is located in a former school building from 1748.

Gorzów Plain

The Gorzów Plain is a physico-geographical mesoregion in northwestern Poland, a remnant of the Ice Age. It is an area adjacent to the Myśliborski Lakeland in the north and separated by a distinct edge from the Warta proglacial valley in the south. The sand plane stretches at an altitude of 40 to 60 m above sea level. From under the sands, moraine clumps emerge that reach heights of up to 86 m and even exceed 100 m near Gorzów. The sandy plains are covered by the Mieszkowice Forest and the Gorzów Forest. The region is crossed by the Odra’s tributaries: Myśla and Kurzec. There are small post-mining lakes. The outflow of Odra – Mysa – flows through the middle of the plain.