Bell tower, Zubrzyca Górna

Monuments

Drewniana dzwonnica w muzeum orawskiego parku etnograficznego w Zubrzycy Górnej. Na niskiej podmurówce, ze ścianami z desek zbiegającymi się skośnie ku górze, z nadbudową o prześwitowych okienkach. Pokryta gontem. Za dzwonnicą widać chałupy i rosnące wysokie drzewa. Po lewej płot z gałęzi.

34-484 Zubrzyca Górna Tourist region: Beskid Żywiecki i Orawa

tel. +48 182852709

A free-standing wooden bell tower with a Loretto bell is a formerly common feature of the Orava landscape. Its construction was linked to the cult of Our Lady of Loretto. Bells were brought back from pilgrimages to Loreto to ward off storms, and their sound also summoned people to prayers and services and warned them of fires.

The bell tower is one of the exhibits in the museum of the Orava Ethnographic Park in Zubrzyca Górna. Dating back to the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it is known as the Loretto or Storm House and was brought from the hamlet of Zimna Dziura. It is a wooden tower on a low foundation, of log construction with walls converging diagonally upwards, boarded, and topped by a mullioned superstructure with clerestory windows with a bell. It features an exhibition on sacred themes. Such bell towers erected in the villages were intended to ward off 'płanetniks', i.e., spirits coming with storm clouds, and, above all, to call for services. The bells also rang natural disasters.