Manor house Hanušovce nad Topľou

One of the most beautiful Baroque manor houses Prešov Region With its four towers, it dominates the picturesque little town below Through the Slanské Hills - Hanušovce nad Topľou.

The owners of the manor house

At the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries the Dessewffy family became the new owners of Hanušovce. The imposing manor house in the Renaissance-Baroque style was built by the brothers Jozef and Tomáš Dessewffy, who were in the service of Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary (1740 - 1780). The Latin text on the marble plaque in the interior of the manor tells about it.

The owners of the manor - the Dessewffy family - came from Cernek, in the Požega region of western Slavonia (eastern Croatia). At the beginning of the 16th century, during the Turkish invasions, the Dessewffy estate also fell into the hands of the Turks. Jan Dessewffy therefore fled to Bratislava with several documents from the family archives. After the Battle of Mohács (1526), the struggle for the Hungarian throne between Jan Zápoľský and Ferdinand Habsburg began. The Dessewffy family had always been loyal to the king, and this tradition was followed by the aforementioned John, who, although not a soldier, put himself at the political service of King Ferdinand. He was a royal chamberlain, confidant, member of the Order of the Knights of Rhodes, counsellor and then president of the Hungarian Chamber and administrator of the royal court in Bratislava. For his loyalty, the king rewarded John Dessewffy properly - he gave him the estates belonging to Kamenica Castle (Kamenica nad Torysou). From this Kamenica branch of the Dessewffy family came also the owners of the Great Manor of Hanušov.

The appearance of the manor house

The two-storey block-style building, with its richly stuccoed windows, was set amongst the greenery of the park, fragments of which have survived to this day. The layout of the rooms inside the manor house reflects the application of the Baroque principle of axial symmetry. The rooms feature barrel vaults with lunettes. The vaulted fields are richly decorated with stucco. Externally, the building’s silhouette is defined by the interplay of the mansard roof and the bell-shaped roofs of the towers, which lend a rhythmic quality to the architecture. The stucco decoration of the windows is also rich. The main entrance portal has side pilasters with a supraport, which originally housed an inscription plaque (now kept in the museum), and a gable with a stone coat of arms The Dessewffys.

Part of the manor grounds was also a large park, which was created at the end of the 19th century by rebuilding the original ornamental garden from the mid-18th century with a regular layout, the most valuable arrangement of which was on the terraces in front of the south-eastern facade of the manor. The terrace layout was based on the natural configuration of the terrain and the garden architecture on Baroque morphology. It was preserved in this form until the mid-19th century, when the regular garden was rebuilt into a nature and landscape park, whose original vegetation structure is still partly preserved today.

The Great Manor House is currently the seat of Local History Museum Hanušovce nad Topľou, which is responsible for documenting the history and natural heritage of the Vranov nad Topľou district.

Hanušovce nad Topľou Manor House – The Grand Manor House is part of Šariš castle roads

Source: The Town of Hanušovce nad Topľou
Source of photographs: OOCR RŠ