MUSEUM Marcina Rożka
MUSEUM Doktora Roberta Kocha
ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUM
  - Saint Jadwiga's Shrine
  - Dutch homestead
  - Reklinek
  - Cottage from Świętno
  - Tavern
  - Smithy
  - Windmill

WYSTAWA
90 rocznica Powstania Wielkopolskiego

 

ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUM - Tavern

 

     The tavern was built in 1706 in Solec Nowy. It is a very spacious building of 17,5 x 9,6 x 8 metres. Although it has got two cellars, it does not have foundations and ground beams are assembled only on a few quite large stones. All walls are made of non-resin pinewood and assembled from several huge parts joined in a log construction, with impressive finishing. A gable roof is thatched. This type of roofing, as long as it was systematically repaired, could have lasted even for 50 years. Roof extension (eaves) effectively has protected against flowing water as well as it has been a place where one could sit in the shade.

     The entrance is under a glass doorhead. It lights the porch, out of which a huge chimney extended for the needs of the tavern is ''going up". Manual churns and quern often have been basic equipment of this part of a cottage. The guest part occupies: a big room with a license and a smaller one at the back devoted to a wealthier clientele. Ceiling beams are decorated with carvings and one of them has got a construction date carved on it. Guests took sits on long benches, plying with local delicacies that were brought by the service usually offered by the keeper's family.

 

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     Within living quarters of the cottage there are two rooms for the owner's family. Furnishings are considerably richer than at an average peasant's cottage. Wardrobes, a sideboard, boxes (certainly once full of goods) prove that the business was profitable. Among furniture there is a delightful pram as well as a peculiar baby walker. Another element, probably mysterious for many visitors, is a dog for shoes, helpful for pulling off calf-length boots. There is also a device for roasting coffee finding its place on the stove.

     This impressive-looking building together with a barn, a farmhand's cottage as well as a stable and a coach house used to form a tavern's homestead. The stable and the coach house served both the tavern-keeper and his guests. Since it was much work within the homestead, he hired farmhands who lived in a separate building (farmhand's cottage). Not only had they helped to attend customers, but they also did in the fields which made an additional source of earning. That was why there was a need to possess a barn where harvested crops could have been stored. The whole farmyard was completed by an octagonal well and a little garden as well as a quite young and small orchard located near the lake.

     It is without question that the owner of a such homestead belonged to the most influential village residents. The tavern was a place for annual ceremonies, parties (firehouses took over the function much later), meetings and councils. Social and cultural life was going on there, and thanks to travellers staying in the place, residents could have drown their knowledge about the world.