In Gilów, architectural history meets the surrounding landscape: the town is home to two churches and a palace, while the Gilów fortified settlement site lies to the east. The yellow hiking trail from Bielawa to Gromnik also passes through Gilów. This gives you two distinct ways to plan your visit: explore the town’s architectural and local history, or take on a long day hike described as easy.
Churches and history in Gilów
The branch church of St. Hedwig is a listed historic monument dating from the 16th to the 18th century. The church complex also includes an enclosing wall and a gate at the parish church. So the church building alone is not the whole story: the wall and gate are explicitly part of the designated complex. When considering its dates, it is important to bear in mind the full period rather than a single year of construction.
The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus has a different historical context. It dates from the mid-19th century, while its tower was built in 1939. These two dates can be considered separately: they do not refer to the same building phase. The Neo-Renaissance altar in the church originally came from the former convent of the Grey Sisters in Gilów. Alongside the building’s history, this brings into view the earlier origins of one of its furnishings and the history of a convent in the town.
Palace and park
The palace stands in the eastern part of Gilów. It was originally built for the Tschirsky family around the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. In the mid-19th century, the Nitschke family gave it a Neoclassical design featuring a columned portico and a garden pavilion accessible from the park. The building’s original construction and its later redesign can therefore be distinguished chronologically.
The palace is a two-storey rectangular building with a hipped roof and dormer windows. A columned portico is a projecting structure supported by columns; the pavilion adds a connection to the park to the architectural features. An unkempt park lies to the east. The building’s form, Neoclassical design and park thus form part of the same local history, without conflating the different building phases.
The fortified settlement site east of town
The Gilów fortified settlement site lies east of Gilów, near the road from Gilów to Niemcza, on a partly rocky hill 281 metres high. It covers approximately 4.5 hectares. The surviving ramparts are up to 8 metres high and up to 12 metres wide at the base. These figures refer to different scales: the size of the site and the dimensions of its fortifications.
The large fortified complex was used for only a short time. It was built by a population group that came from the Great Moravian Empire into territories controlled by the Ślężans. The fortified settlement site therefore represents a different historical context from the churches and palace in town: the focus here is on the fortifications and the history of the group that built them. Its location east of Gilów and near the road to Niemcza helps situate this part of the surrounding area.
The yellow hiking trail from Bielawa to Gromnik
The yellow hiking trail runs from Bielawa to Gromnik via Myśliszów, Owiesno, Piława Dolna, Marianówek, Gilów, Niemcza, Wojsławice and Piotrówek. It connects the Owl Mountains with the Niemczańsko-Strzelińskie Hills. The route is described as long but easy; completing it in full takes a whole day. So if you choose the entire route, plan for a full day of hiking.
The full hike is a different way to spend your time from exploring Gilów’s historic buildings. When deciding what to do, you can first consider whether you are mainly interested in the churches, palace and local history, or whether you want to make the entire yellow trail the focus of a day hike. Gilów is one of the towns along this route between Bielawa and Gromnik.
Discover more destinations: Bielawa, Dzierżoniów, Niemcza, Mościsko, Pieszyce
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