Manor parks in Poland—costly heritage or potential for the development of rural communes

Abstract

Historical parks, as an inseparable element of manors and landowners’ palaces, constitute a valuable cultural heritage, commemorating the times of the Polish nobility. From among the 16,000 manor houses existing before 1939, only 3433 objects remained, including 1965 of them are residential parks without the dominant feature in the form of a building. Numerous studies and activities are carried out to protect, restore, maintain and adapt these facilities to current needs. They are general, often theoretical, or individual concern objects, or only mansions or palaces, excluding parks, which makes it difficult to assess the problem objectively. The aim of this study is a comprehensive assessment of the distribution (in terms of spatial, social and administrative terms), the state of preservation (in terms of area size, technical, phytosanitary and original composition) and the use of the potential of historical parks in manor or palace complexes. The authors examined the distribution of these objects using relative indicators and descriptive statistics. The economic potential of the parks was explored in comparison to the facilities based on their sale offers, using the analysis of variance and the Tukey test. The results show the detailed distribution, state of preservation and problems related to the current and potential use of post-manor parks, manor and palace parks in 16 voivodeships of the country.