Pszczelnik Municipal Park

Pszczelnik Park is the green recreational area of the centre of Siemianowice Śląskie, laid out around 1870. It covers about 26 ha, is entered in the heritage register, and part of it is protected as an ecological site. Besides the paths and trees there is a sports centre here with a swimming pool, a hall and courts.

From a farmstead to a park

In the middle of the 19th century the land belonged to the Bienenhof farmstead, part of the former knightly estates. Around 1870 the existing greenery began to be put in order for a recreation centre. A concert shell was built, later replaced by a stage. In the 1950s a pitch, courts and playgrounds were added. In the interwar period the park belonged to the company United Królewska and Laura Steelworks of Upper Silesia.

In the southern part of the park a sand pit operated until the 1950s, from which sand went to the nearby Saturn mine in Czeladź. It left extensive depressions in the ground, which can still be seen in the shape of the park today.

Nature: the ecological site and natural monuments

In 1997 the city council created an ecological site of 8.21 ha in the park. The northern part is occupied by forest with fragments of hornbeam-oak and riparian communities, and next to it lies the land of the former sand pit with a rich microflora. Growing here are, among others, herb Paris, arum, and crested buckler-fern, and among the birds there live robins and woodpeckers. The park also has two pedunculate oaks and five common beeches recognised as natural monuments, and a rare fungus, the jelly fungus known in Polish as workotrzęsak galaretowaty, threatened with extinction in Poland.

Sport and recreation

In the central part of the park the “Pszczelnik” Municipal Sports and Recreation Centre operates. It consists of an open-air pool measuring 48 by 19 m, a football pitch, a sports hall with a 40 by 20 m court, four tennis courts and a recreation area. The rules of entry to the sports facilities are set by their operator, and the park itself is a walking area.

Practical information

• Location: Siemianowice Śląskie, in the centre area; the park is entered in the heritage register.
• What to see: the avenues and forest in the northern part, depressions left by the former sand pit, old oaks and beeches.
• The sports facilities have their own rules of entry and opening hours, which are given by their operator.
• Larger parks of the region are not far from here: the Silesian Park lies about 4.5 km away, and it is similarly close to the Silesian Planetarium.