Krivany Manor House

The highest concentration of manorial estates in Šariš is in the Upper Torysa region, where there is at least one manor house in almost every village. In the village of Krivany There were 11 to 12 manor houses near Lipany, of which 11 were larger Dessewffy manor houses and 3 to 4 were wooden squire’s mansions with mansard-style shingled roofs. These manor houses were present in the village before the village itself was founded in the 13th century. A castle-like manor is thought to have stood in the vicinity (presumably during the Tarcay family’s tenure). In modern times, the village was owned by the Dessewffy family, then the Nakay family, later the Passuth family and finally the Bornemisza family. Tradition has it that Lájoš Bornemisza received it as a wedding gift in 1863.

A cultural monument in the form of a manor house

One of the cultural monuments in the village is a Renaissance one-storey manor house from the first half of the 17th century. The manor house was built with cylindrical corner towers and was built by the Dessewffy family as a castle, a defensive manor house with an attic and in it with shooting galleries. It thus fulfilled a defensive function.

The first major reconstruction of the manor was in the 18th century. At that time, the interior layout was changed and a number of new vaults were built. The building has a rectangular plan with a projecting buttress on the main north façade and two oval towers on the corners of the south façade. It is two-storeyed and has a basement throughout. The individual rooms of the basement are vaulted. The ground-floor rooms are covered with various types of moulded vaulting with chamfers and stucco decoration, as well as with younger Prussian vaults and with richer stucco decoration. In the core, a Renaissance building with aesthetic and functional minor modifications represents a valuable type of manor house with a lot of valuable details from each construction phase of the modification. Its importance is increased by the fact that it preserved the historical wall of the premises with the entrance gate, or remnants of the historic park, which enhance the value of the monument.

In the first half of the 19th century, the exterior was significantly remodelled in the Late Classical style. The façades were adorned with striking, three-dimensional pilaster friezes. The building’s roof was also remodelled.
The English-style park at the manor house was laid out in the first half of the 19th century. The manor house courtyard contained stables, coach houses and farm buildings; the granary and the manor house itself still stand today.

In the 20th century, the building was renovated again, first in the 1950s, when it was adapted for the needs of a school, later as the headquarters of the Local National Committee, and after restitution as a restaurant. Despite inappropriate interventions and modifications, the building has retained its original layout with many architectural and craft details.

Krivany Manor House is part of Šariš Castle Road.

Source: pamiatkynaslovensku.sk
Source of photographs: OOCR RŠ