St James's Chapel in Sławków

The chapel dedicated to St James the Greater stands in Sławków on a site that for centuries had no buildings. It is a small, plastered stone building, erected in 1827 and today belonging to the parish of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

What stood here before

On this site stood the church of St John and a monastery of the Order of the Holy Spirit, founded in 1298 by Bishop John Muskata. In 1455 they were destroyed by unpaid Moravian and Polish mercenaries. For several centuries the site remained undeveloped, as can still be seen on the town plan of 1823. Beneath the chapel is a crypt, regarded as a remnant of the earlier church buildings.

The founder and later history

The chapel was founded in 1827 by Jakub Kubiczek, mayor of Sławków and a mining entrepreneur, the main owner of the “Kozioł” calamine mine. In 1910 the wooden fence was replaced by a masonry wall with an iron gate. The roof was renovated and re-covered in 1973. The chapel is linked to a local custom of ringing the bell during a storm, which according to tradition was meant to drive the clouds away.

What the chapel looks like

The building is on a rectangular plan with a semicircular apse and a four-sided porch. The roof is gabled and covered with sheet metal, and above it rises a slender, six-sided ridge turret. Inside is a flat ceiling, formerly richly polychromed, today with fragments of paintings. In the neo-Gothic altar hangs a painting of St James, probably from 1828, and beside it a painting of Our Lady of the Rosary from the 18th century in a Rococo frame.

Practical information

• The chapel is in Sławków on św. Jakuba Street, a few hundred metres from the castle of the Bishops of Kraków.
• The building is entered in the heritage register and serves as a small parish church, so the interior is sometimes open only during services.
• In the same part of town stand the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross and St Nicholas and the Regional Museum; it is best to ask the parish about access to the chapel.