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Scraps of History
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Source: Museum of Old Commerce. Small stonework elements which were not protected in due time were used in different places. On the photograph there are two heads of the so-called mascarons previously located on the facade of the Town Hall and now embedded by allotment holders place at Westerplatte Street. |
A quick removal, by the authorities, of ruins of the Town Hall Tower that collapsed in 1967 caused that irretrievably a lot of elements from sculptural decor of the tower and its equipment went missing.
The ruins put on a dump truck carelessly were transported to dumping ground by Bystrzycka Street. For numerous years it was explored by outsiders who scavenged the most original elements. And this is how for example two heads crowning in the former times the Town Hall's facade were embedded by allotment holders place at Westerplatte Street. It cannot be stated how many other elements were scavenged from the ruins of the tower and appropriated. In the half of the 80s Andrzej Góralski, a member of the Committee on the Protection of Monuments, located one of the places where the ruins were thrown down at Bystrzycka Street. In October 1986 the site investigation was performed concurrently finding several dozen of richly sculptured elements of stonework, fragments of balustrades, portals and cornices which were laid at the depth of almost one meter. Smaller elements were transported to the Museum of Old Commerce and municipal warehouses and bigger – were left which did not protect them from being stolen. What does the rubbish heap by Bystrzycka Street conceal? We can only guess - a lot of precious details which should be displayed in the tower which is being reconstructed.
In 2010 this place was visited again by Andrzej Góralski, municipal councillor Mariusz Barcicki and journalist of „Tygodnik Świdnicki” Andrzej Dobkiewicz. Unfortunately, the exploration of the area by unauthorised persons is still in progress. Several years earlier in this place Andrzej Góralski saw beautifully decorated elements made of sandstone which do not exist nowadays. Despite the fact that the dumping ground by Bystrzycka Street is huge it seems that the exploration of these places in which the ruins from the tower are present is the most reasonable in the context of possibilities to get back the elements of the tower which could be displayed in the newly raised building.
Source: The archives of „Tygodnik Świdnicki”.
