Castle in Bochotnica

egend has it that the castle in Bochotnica was built by Casimir the Great, who, while staying in nearby Kazimierz Dolny, made unofficial trips to the Bochotnica castle to meet his lover Esterka. However, the facts do not confirm Casimir's foundation. Research indicates that it was not Casimir the Great, but the Firlej family who built a defensive seat in Bochotnica.

There were fortifications on the hill above the Bystra River much earlier, which were used by the aforementioned Firlej family in the construction of a brick castle around the middle of the 14th century. The stone perimeter walls reinforced with a 50-meter-wide covered a significant area of ​​7, 000 square meters, and the Firlej family placed a residential building and farm buildings within them. The entrance gate was located on the south, and on the north, the courtyard was closed with a single-tract residential building.

In 1399, the estate was purchased from the Firlej family by Klemens of Kurów, who began the expansion of the castle, which was later continued by his descendants during the first half of the 15th century. As a result of this expansion, the castle was enriched with a second residential stone and brick building, which had three storeys and was a single-bay structure. Everything indicates that neither the original Firlej castle nor the later Kurowski 

Aerial photo, photo by ZeroJeden, X 2018

castle had towers. A new entrance gate was placed in the south-eastern corner, of which traces of a drawbridge and a fragment of a carved support under the arch of the gate opening have survived. At the end of the 15th century, the castle was occupied by robbers led by Anna Zbąska, who robbed the local population and merchants passing through. After dealing with the robbers in 1523, the castle, granted by Sigismund the Old, ended up in the hands of the Samborski family. In the first half of the 17th century, they abandoned their residence, which has since fallen into ruin. In 1890, A. Zwierzchowski made a project to rebuild the ruins, but it was not implemented. In 1964-1965, it was studied by architects from the Wrocław University of Technology under the supervision of Ewa Różycka. Today, only fragments of the stone and brick walls of the ground floor have survived from the castle.

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