“Stara Chałupa” Museum in Milówka

The “Stara Chałupa” (“Old Cottage”) Museum in Milówka is a timber house from 1739, entered in the heritage register and part of the Wooden Architecture Trail of the Silesian Voivodeship. It is an example of the traditional building of the Żywiec region and one of the oldest examples of folk architecture in the area.

An inn, then a farmstead

The first owner was the Milówka innkeeper Piotr Gorel, which is why the cottage may originally have served as a village inn. In 1760 his son Bartłomiej sold it, together with the land and livestock, to Sebastian Caputa of Węgierska Górka. According to the municipality, the date of construction is confirmed by an inscription on the central beam in the main room, with the name of Sebastian Caputa. Later the farmstead was inherited by the Kąkol family, who kept it until the early 1970s. Since 1992 the building has belonged to the Milówka municipality.

How the cottage is built

The walls of timber logs are joined with corner notches (obłap) and dovetails (rybi ogon), and the whole stands on a stone foundation. The gabled roof is covered with shingles and has half-hips in the gable walls. In the entrance hall a clay threshing floor, on which grain was threshed, has been preserved, and from here one enters the storeroom and the living room. In the living room are a bread oven with a hood, a “holy corner” with a small shrine, and a table with an inlaid top. The furnishings belong to the Municipal Museum in Żywiec.

The legend of the kings

A local legend says that King John Casimir, fleeing the Swedes, stopped in the cottage and that John III Sobieski spent the night here on his way to Vienna. Documents do not confirm this.

Practical information

• Address: ulica Piastowska 1, Milówka.
• The cottage has been open to visitors since 1988; it is looked after by the Municipal Cultural Centre in Milówka. Check visiting hours with the municipality before your visit.
• Next door, in a building brought from Przyłęków, workshops are held in tissue-paper crafts, painting on glass and ceramics.
• Nearby stands the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Milówka, and the folk tradition of the region is presented by the Gallery of New Year's Dziady and Szlachcice.