Uraz Castle

Uraz Castle is a historic castle in the village of Uraz in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Trzebnica County, Oborniki Śląskie commune.

In the 13th century a castellan's stronghold was recorded guarding the crossing of the Oder and situated in one of its bends. It originally belonged to the dukes of Wrocław, but under the will of Henryk Probus of 1290 it passed to Henry III of Głogów, and in 1312 into the hands of his sons Konrad I of Oleśnica and Bolesław of Oleśnica. A few years later it again came into the possession of the dukes of Wrocław, who around 1319 handed it over to the three Radak brothers. Andrzej Radak, one of the brothers, enlarged the castle.

The original builders of the castle are unknown and there is much disputed discussion of the subject among historians. The castle was built of bog iron ore and brick on the plan of an equilateral triangle with sides about 23 m long. This is a rarely encountered design, intended to lessen the effects of artillery fire; the shot was supposedly to "slide" off the wall. A similar design is found in the "waterdrop"-shaped tower of the castle in Bolków. The sharp corners face the town and the Oder. The walls at ground level were 2.5 m thick.

In 1336 the town together with the castle came into the possession of the starost of Wrocław, Konrad von Borschnitz; in 1344 the burgrave Hancho von Auras is mentioned, and in 1363 Herman von Borschnitz. From 1428 to 1443 it belonged to the von Tschirna family. In 1466 the property was granted by the king of Bohemia George of Poděbrady to the knight Christoph von Skopp, who enlarged the castle. The next owner was Konrad X the White, Duke of Oleśnica. From 1492, for almost 150 years, the castle was in the hands of the von Joerger family. It was they who carried out a further rebuilding of the castle in the Baroque style.

Machine-translated from “Zamek w Urazie” on the Polish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Uraz Castle ranks #6,271 of 7,044 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #292 of the 360 mapped in Poland. Founded 1400, it is older than 52% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 557 atlas entries founded in the 14th century. See how Poland compares in the castle statistics.

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Read the full history on Wikipedia (in Polish) ↗