A historic knight's castle and later residence of the Schweinichen family in the village of Świny in the Kaczawskie Foothills in the Sudetes.
Świny Castle is a historic castle standing in the village of Świny in the Kaczawskie Foothills in the Sudetes, a few kilometres from Bolków. It was built as a fortified knight's seat, and from the early 17th century it served as a residential residence. It was built of brown-red conglomerate on a hill of quartz porphyry and porphyry tuff.
A stronghold originally stood on this site. The castle was first mentioned in Cosmas's chronicle in 1108 under the name Zvini in Polonia. In the 13th century its owners were successively Tader, Jaksa and Piotr ze Świn, after which the property passed into the hands of the Świnka family, also known as von Schweinichen.
In the mid-14th century the Schweinichens built a four-storey residential-defensive tower with walls 2.5 metres thick. A hundred years later, Gunzel von Schweinichen added a double-gabled building and new fortifications. The largest rebuilding was carried out between 1614 and 1660 by Johann Sigismund von Schweinichen, turning the fortified seat into a Renaissance residence. The tower measures 12 by 18 metres, has a basement and is covered with a gabled roof, with a Gothic portal leading inside. The whole complex was surrounded by a defensive wall with towers and a bastion.
The castle suffered repeatedly: in 1762 it was plundered by Russian troops, and in 1840, 1848 and 1868 it was damaged by storms. In 1876 a fire destroyed the interior of the building. Attempts at preservation were made in 1931, and between 1936 and 1937 the tower was given a new roof. The Schweinichen family held the castle until 1702, when its younger branch died out, and the estate passed to a son-in-law, Sebastian Henryk von Schweinitz. In 1769 the castle was sold to the Prussian minister Johann Heinrich von Churschwandt, and until 1941 it belonged to the Austrian counts Hoyos von Sprinzenstein. Since 1991 it has again been in private hands.
In 1624 the mystic Jacob Böhme stayed at the castle, where he wrote a text titled "Message to the Thirsty and Hungry Soul" ("Posłanie do spragnionej i głodnej duszy"). At that time the castle served as a mystical-theosophical centre. According to a local legend, it was supposedly linked by an underground passage to Bolków Castle.
The nearest attraction is the Bolków Castle Museum, operating in Bolków Castle. Further afield, towards the Sudetes, lie protected areas, including the Nad Groblą Nature Reserve.
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