Hollander construction

In Wielkopolska, you can find characteristic buildings called Olęders, from settlers – emigrants who came here in the 18th century from the Netherlands. The Olęders are one of the many old names of today's Dutchmen. The remains of their settlement have survived to this day in Polish villages – in their spatial arrangement, architecture and place names. There are a lot of such facilities in the Miedzichowo Commune and nearby communes, just a few / several kilometers from the WENA agritourism. While relaxing in our summer houses, we recommend visiting the nearby villages in the meantime and getting to know this one-of-a-kind construction.

The location of the houses in a row or dispersed in one settlement is characteristic of the Olęder architecture. If you want to see Olęder settlements, it is worth going to the Nowotomyska Plain, which consists of the villages of: Pniewy – Lwówek – Pszczew – Trzciel – Zbąszyń – Wolsztyn – Rakoniewice. From the beginning of the 18th century, the Hollander construction developed here most intensively in Greater Poland and its remains can also be seen today. The Olęder settlement also included such towns as, inter alia, Sękowo (the first settlement settled by colonists – 1700) Bolewicko, Krzywy Las, Węgielnia, Jastrzębsko Stare or Stary Folwark. The Dutch settlement left behind not only characteristic buildings, but also half-timbered huts and roadside shrines.

In the Nowy Tomyśl district, the Dutch started a characteristic type of large-scale cultivation – hops and wicker. It was connected with an additional building on the Olęder farm, unique outside the region – a livestock building with a granary and a drying room. Other typical buildings of the Olęder homestead are a house, a woodshed with a hen house, a pigsty and a barn (belonging to the farm complex). Nowy Tomyśl was the religious center for the Olęders from the area, where in 1779 an evangelical church was built. Apart from the Dutch, the Dutch community also comprised the inhabitants of today's Germany – the German-speaking population began to leave the Nowy Tomyśl region after 1918, and the last representatives – after 1945.

The Museum of Wicker and Hops in Nowy Tomyśl, which we recommend visiting to learn about this culture as much as possible, is located in a reconstructed Olęder cottage.