Gardens of the former Cistercian Abbey of the Virgin Mary and Saint Nicholas in Ląd

Janusz Nowiński SDB

doi:10.5277/arc130305

Abstract

Before the abolition in 1819 the Cistercian abbey in Ląd had three garden complexes: the monastic garden (conventual) – located on the south side of the monastery by the Warta River canal and on as island between the canal and the river-bed, the abbot’s garden – founded by the abbot’s palace in the second half of the 16th century, on the slope on the east side of monastery and the church, as well as a viridarium with a fountain in the monastic interior. After the abolition these gardens became devastated, while the biggest part of the abbot’s garden was incorporated into a grange which came into being at the beggining of the 19th century. In 1850, the church and the monastery in Ląd were taken over by the Capuchins who carried out a renovation of the whole complex and also a revival of its gardens. In the square in front of the church a park was founded at the time. A plan of the church and monastery in Ląd from about 1865 documents the location of the gardens and park after the abolition of the Capuchines’s monastery by the Tsarist government. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the abbot’s palace was pulled down as well as most of the monastic farm buildings. The Salesians, who came to Ląd in 1921, restored parts of the old gardens to their primary function. In 2008, due to the commission of the Administration of the Salesian Society Facilities of St. Adal bert Inspectorate there came into existence a conceptional project of revalorization and management of the park and gardens by the post-Cisterican abbey in Ląd by the Warta River. The authors of the project are Anetta Jarosińska-Krokowska and Janusz Nowiński. The project anticipates a new management and reconstruction of the old and present gardens by the monastery in Ląd assigning them for purposes of recreation, education and economic ones.

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