Parks and nature
a park with a pond, the Rheinbaben palace complex and a grotto made of stones
Parks and nature
historic English-style park by the Donnersmarck Palace with natural monuments and a museum in a granary
Parks and nature
a historic park with a swimming pool, sports pitches and an ecological site in the centre of Siemianowice
Parks and nature
Modernist park from the 1920s by the former steelworks baths, with a fountain and a playground
Parks and nature
an interwar park with former swimming pools, ruined by mining damage
Parks and nature
pond on a former mining site with reed beds and waterbirds, on the border with Chorzów
Parks and nature in Siemianowice Śląskie: an English-style park by the Donnersmarck palace, Pszczelnik and the green corners of Michałkowice.
Siemianowice Śląskie is a town of steelworks and coal mines, yet it has a surprising amount of greenery, from historic parks to a pond fringed with reeds. Entry to all six places is free, and each shows a different chapter of the town's past.
Start at the Town Park in Siemianowice Śląskie, regarded as the town's showpiece park. It covers almost eighteen hectares and was designed as an English landscape park beside the former Donnersmarck residence, between Parkowa and Chopina streets. Natural monuments and rare trees grow here, and the palace itself dates from 1786.
The town centre also holds Pszczelnik Municipal Park, laid out around 1870 on the former Bienenhof farm. It covers about twenty-six hectares, is listed as a monument, and part of it has been protected as an ecological site. Next to the paths stands a sports centre with a swimming pool, a hall and courts, so a stroll can easily turn into a workout.
Two parks grew up beside workplaces. Hutnik Park, on Śniadeckiego street, is a small park of about two and a half hectares in the centre, unfenced, with an oval basin and an illuminated fountain. It was laid out in the mid-1920s in a modernist style, next to the 1908 bathhouse for workers of the Laura steelworks.
In Michałkowice, a district of Siemianowice, you will find Górnik Park on Oświęcimska street. It used to be called the Rheinbaben Park, and at its heart lies a pond fed by water from the former Michał mine. The grounds hold a palace complex known as the Little Castle, a forester's and a gardener's house, a fountain and a grotto, which is a rock garden. The park dates from the early twentieth century.
Staw pod Chorzowem in Bytków is an artificial pond of more than three hectares right on the border with Chorzów, created on mining ground of the closed Polska mine. Its banks are overgrown with reed, club-rush and broadleaf cattail, and the birds recorded here include tufted ducks and black-necked grebes. Its former status as an ecological site has lapsed.
The People's Park in Michałkowice is a different story. It was created between the wars as an alternative to the private Rheinbaben park, with swimming pools, a toboggan run and a restaurant. Today the area is degraded by mining damage, so think of it as a trace of local history rather than a destination for a stroll. More addresses are collected among the attractions of Siemianowice Śląskie, and parks across the region are covered in the overview of parks and nature in Silesia. After a walk you can visit the historic sites of Siemianowice Śląskie.
Pszczelnik is the largest, at about twenty-six hectares. The Town Park by the Donnersmarck palace covers almost eighteen hectares.
No, entry to all six places is free. Hutnik Park is not even fenced.
One lies in Górnik Park in Michałkowice, fed by water from the former Michał mine. Another, Staw pod Chorzowem, is in Bytków on the border with Chorzów.
Pszczelnik, where a sports centre with a pool, a hall and courts stands next to the paths.
