History
The oldest information about the Wojciechów settlement comes from 1328-1351. The first fortifications were probably built by the village heir and Lublin castellan Piotr Szczekocki in the second half of the 14th century. His son Piotr may be associated with the expansion of a stone court house, which remained in the hands of the Szczekocki family until 1483, when it came to possession of the Pilecki family, coat of arms Leliwa. The construction of a tower house the researchers attributed to Jan Pilecki, who from 1514 was the Lublin starost. In 1534 his nephews rented the building to Firlejs and later to Stanisław Spinak. Since 1580 the village has remained in the hands of the Orzechowski, who at the beginning of the 17th century built a new palace near the fortress and used the tower for economic purposes. Both Spinkow and Orzechowscy were Protestants, hence the name “Arian”.
Architecture
The first fortifications were two earth ramparts on an oval plan, separated by a moat from the 13th century. The outer slope of the main rampart was reinforced with at least one row of palisade, made of wooden logs about 0.5 meters thick.
A brick building from the second half of the 14th century was erected in the southern part of the inner ward. It was built of stones and bricks, had dimensions of 9.3 x 28.2 meters, walls 1.2 meters thick and a single-track system, with three rooms in the ground floor. The shorter walls of the building were facing east and west, which provided good sunlight for the long southern wall. Two of the ground floor chambers: eastern and western, had the same dimensions, which were 6.9 x 8.4 meters. The middle room measuring 6.9 x 6.6 meters, was probably a transitional entrance room. At this part there was an external annex with dimensions of 2.4 x 3.6 meters. Most probably the building was two-story, because even the partition walls were of considerable thickness, and a small annex next to the southern wall could serve as a staircase. It is also possible that the central part of the building was higher than the side ones, forming a kind of tower. The façade of the building from the courtyard side could be decorated with glazed bricks, frequently found during archeological research.
The tower house was erected in the northern part of the complex from local stones on a quadrangle plan measuring 12×13 meters. It was located on the left side of the entrance to the inner ward, probably using the hollow of the older moat for foundation of the basement level. At that time, the medieval court had to be in ruin, because its building material was also used to build the tower. It had two-chamber vaulted cellars and three or four floors, two of which were also covered with vaults. The entrance to the tower was on the south side, where a staircase was added at the beginning of the 17th century. Probably in the first half of the 16th century the entire former farmyard was surrounded by walls with arrowslits to reinforce the defensive values of the site.
Current state
To this day, only a late medieval tower house called Arian Tower has survived from the medieval court, rebuilt and enlarged in the early modern period by the addition of a staircase. At present, the Ariańska Tower houses the Commune Center of Culture, the Regional Museum, the Smithery Museum, the Municipal Library, the Agrotourist Information Point and the café.
bibliography:
Grochecki K., Piotrowski M., Wokół fundacji Orzechowskich w Krupem i Wojciechowie [w:] Zamki Lubelszczyzny w źródłach archeologicznych, red. E.Banasiewicz-Szykuła, Lublin 2015.
Jakimowicz T., Dwór murowany w Polsce w wieku XVI, Warszawa 1979.
Leksykon zamków w Polsce, red. L.Kajzer, Warszawa 2003.
Sypek A., Sypek R., Zamki i obiekty warowne ziemi lubelskiej i Podlasia, Warszawa 2009.