The route starts at the market square in Sucha Beskidzka, where the wooden ‘Rome’ Inn is located. You can have a meal there before the tour, or, closing the loop, have a longer feast at the end of the daylong trip. We choose the second option and therefore we put the description of the monument in the last section of the route.
From the market square, along Mickiewicza Street, we head west towards neighbouring Stryszawa. On the way we can see several buildings which are interesting examples of wooden architecture. While driving, on the right we pass three wooden buildings (36, 38, 40 Mickiewicza St.), called ‘castle officials’ mansions’. These are one-storey buildings erected in the 1880s, with high gabled roofs and rich ornamentation of wooden finishes in the type of Swiss resort architecture.
Driving further towards Stryszawa, already on the outskirts of Sucha, we can see, on the left side of the road (182 Role Street), a house representing a certain original type of small-town wooden architecture. It is probably one of the two preserved buildings of this type in the Podbeskidzie Region. Particularly characteristic elements of their architecture are a log facade protruding from the front part of the roof and a roofed porch. Built in the second half of the 18th century, at that time serving as an inn, the building has an axial layout common for the discussed type with a hallway and a semicircular closed entrance with stave wooden gates. It is covered with a shingled, gablet roof with decking in a herringbone pattern.
We continue westwards. At the border of Sucha Beskidzka and Stryszawa, the road returns to its basic marking (voivodeship road No. 946). Having reached Stryszawa Stachówka, we turn left and continue along the county road to Lachowice Centre. At the level of the Voluntary Fire Brigade building standing on the right side of the road, we turn into the narrow asphalt road on the left. After about 50 m, we park in front of the wooden church which is the final point of this section of the route.
SAINTS PETER AND PAUL CHURCH
The Saint Peter and Paul Church was built between 1789 and 1791 and is currently one of the most interesting examples of sacral wooden architecture in southern Poland. In 2003 it was selected to be listed by UNESCO. The church is a timber-framed, oriented, one-nave construction, with a tower added to the nave, with sloping walls and covered with an onion-shaped helmet with a chamber in the upper part. Around the church there are characteristic buttresses supported on pillars, open to the outside, partly boarded, in which one can see the painted Stations of the Cross from 1846, the work of an artist from Żywiec, Antoni Krząstkiewicz. The presbytery and nave, the buttresses, and even the fence and gates are uniformly covered with shingles. Two entrances lead into the church with portals carved into the so-called donkey’s back. The centuries-old stone floor reinforces the atmosphere of old times.
The interior decoration is in the Baroque-Classicist style. In the three-tier main altar there are two paintings: Virgin Mary with Child, which is a 17th century Baroque copy of an older, Gothic image, and a slide painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Above them, there is another, smaller painting, depicting the patron saints of the church, Sts Peter and Paul. The altar itself is in the late Baroque style. The presbytery is separated from the nave by a double chancel opening. In the upper part, there is a crucifix on a rood beam, which is supported on side pillars decorated with semi-columns with statues of the Virgin Mary (on the left) and St. John the Evangelist (on the right). The vaults and walls with painted images of the apostles are decorated with 19th century polychrome.
Other noteworthy elements of the church’s interior include two stone Baroque holy water fonts from the end of the 18th century, a stone Baroque baptismal font and a wooden confessional from the same period, as well as a wooden Baroque pulpit decorated with figures of saints and a musical choir supported by two carved columns and housing an organ from 1836, the work of Marcin Gracz from Pcim.
The historic complex also includes: a wooden organist’s house from the second half of the 19th century, two old stone cellars with wooden attics and a preserved part of the fence with gates. There is also a wooden, shingled, quadrilateral belfry from the 19th century, and a wooden outbuilding which used to be a mortuary.
Address: 34-232 Lachowice 178
Car park: open to the public, on the western side of the building
Mass times:
Weekdays: 7:00 AM – Monday – Thursday, sob. 6:00 PM – Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, (in the winter time 5:00 PM);
Sunday: 7:00 AM, 10:15 AM, 11:45 AM (on the months VII - VIII there is no services), 6:00 PM (in the winter time 5:00 PM);
GPS:
N49 42.823 (49.713716)
E19 28.446 (19.474100)