The Parish church

The Gothic Parish church of St. Margaret in Gostyń was raised in the 15th century. The building was also a fortress. In the middle of the 16th century the vestibule, the treasure house and the chapel of St. Anna were added as well as the last two storeys of the tower. Since then the outside appearance of the church has not changed much. In the years 1560-1566  the church was in the hands of  the heterodox. The interior design is baroque with a few gothic and Renaissance accents.

Coordinates: N51.8790691, E17.0184385

City Hall

The City Hall was not always the headquarters of the municipal authorities of Gostyń. A City Hall existed in the Middle Ages and in the 17th and 18th centuries. From the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century, there was no building serving such a purpose.

The current City Hall was created in the years 1910-1912 by merging two buildings – the seat of the mayor and city council and the courthouse. It was designed by an architect Lucjan Michałowski.

Coordinates: N51.8778408, E17.0170568

Market square

The market square in Gostyń has existed since the Middle Ages. Its size, shape and radially spreading roads indicate that the city was located basing on the Magdeburg law.

Originally, it was a place for trade and gatherings of the citizens. Nowadays it is a representative square.

For centuries, all the houses were made of wood. Many of them were lost in a fire in 1811. Since the mid-nineteenth century brick buildings were started to be erected. Present development dates from the late 19th and early 20th century.

Coordinates: N51.8778386, E17.0166639

Hospital

In the years 1841-1846 the building housed the headquarters of Kasyno Gostyńskie, the first association for organic work in Wielkopolska region.

After the dissolution of the organisation by the Prussian authorities, the property was transferred to the Sisters of Mercy. In 1849 they established a Sick Ward in this building.

Nowadays, the extended building houses a hospital, whose patron is Karol Marcinkowski – a doctor, social worker and philanthropist.

Coordinates: N51.882759, E17.011004

Museum

The building was raised in1903 as the Hospital of the Holy Spirit, which was maintained and supervised by the parson of the Old Gostyń Parish. Since 1936 it was  “The Church’s institution - the Holy Spirit Shelter for the Elderly”.

In 1948 the building was taken over by the State Treasury from the Parish of St. Margaret in Gostyń.

The town’s retail traders, County’s Co-operative of food producers “Społem” and the County Job Center had their seat here. Since 2010 the building has been the seat of the Museum of Gostyń.

Coordinates: N51.8785938, E17.017752

„Shooting range”

The building was raised in1896. Since the outbreak of the Second World War it was the seat of  a Shooting Gild. Next to it there was a shooting range, which that explains the origins of the colloquial name.

In the years 1896-1919 most Polish organizations met here. The decision that the inhabitants of Gostyń will join the Greater Poland National Upraising was taken in the place. Between 1941 and 1942 a German camp for French prisoners of war was located here. Nowadays a concert hall of the State Music School has its seat here.

Coordinates: N51.8786824, E17.0029489

May the 1st Street

It is one of the oldest streets in Gostyń. Up to 1920 it was called Leszczynska Street, then it was renamed to The Holy Spirit Street. After 1945 it got its present name.

In this Street there was the Leszczynska Gate, which led to the Great Suburbs.  Nearby, there was a cemetery, a church and a hospital of the Holy Spirit, founded in 1301 by Mikolaj Przedpełkowic, the first town laird. The town’s moat, which protected the west of the town, went along this street.

Coordinates: N51.8782134, E17.0136074

The Polonia Hotel

At the end of the 19th  century a Jew, Pinkus Wacht , ran a hotel and an inn here. At  the beginning of the 20th century the building was owned by a German – Dohmen. He performed a reconstruction and in 1906 opened the hotel “Dohmen” there. It operated under this name until 1918.

In 1922 Władysław Jezierski purchased the building and set up the hotel “Polonia”, which functioned until the mid 1990s. In the years 1928-1932 the “Odeon” cinema had its quarters here.

Coordinates: N51.878942, E17.012228

Cinema

The building of the present- day cinema was raised in 1935, in the former Dobramyśl Street, as a day room of  Józef Piłsudski Memorial. It belonged to the Shooting/Rifle Association of Gostyń.

In 1936 the first in town permanent sound cinema “the Sun” was started here. In 1951 the name was changed to “Nysa”. And the present- day name “Under the Dome” operates since 2005.

In the years 1946 and 1950 public show trials of the Cursed Soldiers took place here.

Coordinates: N51.882340, E17.007153