Swobnica

Poland, Poland

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Swobnica is a village in northwestern Poland's West Pomeranian Voivodeship, in Gryfino County within Gmina Banie, nestled among lakes and forests in the Tywa River valley near the German border.

Its origins trace to the mid-13th century as part of Pomeranian ducal lands, with a Knights Hospitaller castle erected after 1377 on an artificial peninsula islet surrounded by water on three sides and a moat on the fourth, featuring a square layout with a 31-meter-high tower used partly as a prison, residential wings, gatehouse, and outer economic ward.

Built with ducal permission from Świętobor I and Bogusław VII for border defense—open to princes but restricting independent Hospitaller raids—it expanded in the 15th century with additional wings before transforming into a residential manor by 1600, passing to Hohenzollerns in 1648 post-Thirty Years' War, then a Baroque hunting palace by 1730 under Dorota Szlezwicko-Holsztyńska, and suffering devastation in 1954, leaving romantic ruins today.