Łukasz Orlicki, historian and columnist for Odkrywca, arrived with a team at Grodziec Castle on 15 November 2025. It was another visit to the site. The interdisciplinary team’s objective is one of the most mysterious wells in Lower Silesia. It is filled with backfill containing rubble, post-war waste and valuable historical artefacts from the castle, such as halberds, sculptures and decorative elements.
The project, conducted in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts, aims to uncover the well’s secrets, including investigating the legend of an allegedly existing tunnel. The researchers hope to reach the original bottom of the well, which probably dates back to the Middle Ages.
“When we came here two years ago, nobody really knew anything about this well,” says Łukasz Orlicki. “The first thing I heard was that there was a tunnel inside the well at a relatively shallow depth, but in reality we have not found it so far. We have dug down 13 metres. It probably did not exist at all, although the legend is still alive. There are people who claimed they had used it to get out. At present, we are in backfill that certainly formed shortly after the war. And I can safely say that we are approaching material that may have been deposited as early as 1945, when various objects from the castle chambers were thrown into the well,” Orlicki adds.
Numerous columns designed by Bodo Ebhardt, the architect who restored the castle at the beginning of the 20th century, had previously been removed from inside the well, along with architectural elements, including what was probably part of a sacramentarium, and stone elements bearing inscriptions mainly in Russian from 1948. These findings shed new light on the site’s post-war history.
An extraordinary discovery was a large, heavy winch equipped with a system of gears, used to lower and raise substantial loads. Its presence is puzzling because it is too large for this well and does not appear in any design documentation or pre-war photographs. It is not known what such a lift would have been used for at this well, suggesting that it may have served lower or hidden levels.
Due to the quantity and value of the objects found, the well at Grodziec Castle is unique on a Polish scale
“Today we have even extracted such objects as a fragment of armoured glass, a pre-war German fire extinguisher and parts of a chest, and we do not know what else we will discover in a moment,” says the explorer. “One of the most valuable objects recovered from the well so far is a huge halberd-shaped finial, covered with gilded paint. Not to mention the book stand from the castle chapel, which may be one of the oldest such stands ever discovered in Poland,” Orlicki relates.
Work on the well resumed in November this year after an almost two-year break. The project had to be suspended for technical reasons. The backfill consists of compacted rubble made up of wood, various types of metal, including broken and bent pre-war stools, large fragments of stonework and, occasionally, boulders. There are safety concerns because of the interlocked layers and the risk that further metres of material could collapse. The excavated material is removed in buckets using a pulley system, while larger stonework elements are secured and lifted with winches.
Research and exploration of the castle well are being carried out jointly with the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. Jagoda Ciechanowska, a conservator who has worked at the castle for many years and works together with students of the Academy of Fine Arts, provides specialist support.
Progress on the work at Grodziec Castle and other interesting discoveries can be followed on social media channels, including YT Odkrywca.
The Odkrywca magazine can be purchased at: odkrywca.pl