The ruins of an early 14th-century castle on a rock in a forest near Janów, with fragments of ramparts and walls and the Ostrężnik Cave.
Ostrężnik Castle (Zamek Ostrężnik) is the ruin of a medieval stronghold on top of a rock in a forest on a hill (380 m above sea level), about 6 km from Janów, south of provincial road no. 793 Janów - Żarki. All that remains of the castle is the rock, fragments of walls and ramparts, and little is known of its history.
Almost no mentions of the castle survive in chronicles. According to archaeological research of 2000-2003, led by Stanisław Kołodziejski, the castle was built at the beginning of the 14th century, probably on the initiative of Jan Muskata, Bishop and starost of Kraków.
The absence of later cultural layers suggests that the castle was never completed or was used for a very short time. The only mention comes from the Częstochowa registers and speaks of a ruin of a tower or castle in Ostrężnik. It is not known when and in what circumstances the stronghold was destroyed.
The surviving remains indicate an upper and a lower castle, with two outer wards, surrounded by a deep moat. The upper castle had a regular layout with an area of about 1,200 m². In the north-western part of the courtyard stood a residential building on a rectangular plan, and on the south a four-sided tower projecting in front of the line of the walls. The walls were 144 m long and about 2 m thick.
The rock is steep and inaccessible from the north and west, and gentler from the south and east, where an outer ward with an economic function developed, with an area of about 2,000 m². Some sources give as much as about 7,000 m².
What remains is the rock on which the upper castle stood, and fragments of ramparts and walls lower than a metre, probably remains of a defensive tower, a residential building and a gate tower. Earthen ramparts around the outer ward can also be seen, and the whole area is overgrown with forest.
In the rock is the Ostrężnik Cave, with passages about 90 m long, visited by cavers. It is a site for cavers, not a tourist route.
According to legends the castle was inhabited by robber knights who kept treasures from their raids here, and an underground passage was said to link it with the castle in Olsztyn. Another tale links the castle with the January Uprising: after the battle of Śmiertny Dąb in July 1863 the insurgents were said to have hidden the unit’s documents and cash box here.
The rock lies in the Ostrężnik nature reserve. Right next to it, about 100 m away, is the Larger Rock Shelter in Ostrężnik, and about 4.5 km away the Siedlec Desert.
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