Źródliska Park in Łódź — the city's oldest park and its palm house

A spring-fed wood the city kept

The name explains the place: źródło means spring, and the park was laid out in 1840 on exactly that — damp, spring-fed ground on what was then the eastern edge of town. Earlier names were the Walking Garden and the English Garden, and in the 1860s the German-speaking residents called it Kwela Park, from Quell. Until 1875 it was the only municipal park in Łódź, a textile city that had gone from village to metropolis in a couple of generations.

The first layout was plain: two avenues crossing in the middle, with benches, little bridges, two arbours and a salaried gardener added at the end of the 1840s. The woodland character survived, and the oaks of roughly three hundred years now protected as natural monuments are far older than the park around them.

Today's 17.2 hectares lie between Przędzalniana, Fabryczna and Targowa streets and Aleja Piłsudskiego, a few minutes' walk from the Księży Młyn workers' estate.

Split between a city and a mill owner

In the 1850s the garden was divided and its western half sold to Karol Scheibler, the largest cotton manufacturer in Łódź, who turned it into a private garden beside his palace on the old Water Market. The eastern half, today's Źródliska I, stayed with the city, though it was leased out for a time in the 1860s.

Along the northern edge the marksmen's guild ran a shooting range until 1905, holding its annual contest for the title of shooting king around Whitsun. Scheibler leased the municipal half himself in the late 1880s; the trees were inventoried for the first time then and a bandstand went up. In 1892 the park hosted the city's first horticultural show, with twenty exhibition pavilions built for it.

Scheibler's lease ran out in 1906 and the city fenced the park again. The layout visitors see now comes from two later reworkings: one in the early 1920s to a design by Edward Ciszkiewicz, who added the pond, a small botanical garden and a playground, and one in the 1930s, when Stefan Rogowicz planted flower parterres in the north. The war cost the park many trees and its entire fence, dismantled by the German occupiers; the western half was opened to residents only in 1947.

Palms older than the glasshouse

The palm house has been open since 1956, but most of what grows inside reached Łódź long before. The oldest specimens came from the orangeries of nineteenth-century mill owners and officials. More arrived in 1914, when tsarist civil servants fleeing the advancing German army left their potted plants in the municipal greenhouses for safekeeping and never came back for them; the city took over whatever was unclaimed.

The oldest palms are close to a hundred and fifty years old, several generations older than the building that houses them. The glass structure is divided into three pavilions with different climates, so plants with different needs are kept apart. The collection is looked after by the Łódź Botanical Garden, and the entrance is on the Aleja Piłsudskiego side.

What to look for

• Three ponds — the largest with an island, in the informal landscaped part of Źródliska I
• Monumental oaks — in both halves; the oldest predate the industrial city entirely
• Bandstand and gardener's house — survivors of the interwar park
• Chess tables — by the square with its flowerbed and sculpture, in use for decades
• Grotto with a viewing terrace, fountains and an arbour — in Scheibler's former private garden
• Scheibler's palace — home to the Museum of Cinematography since 1986, closing the park on the west

Listed, and once voted the finest

The park entered the register of monuments on 6 December 1984 under the number A/303. Three decades later it was included in the area of the Monument of History "Łódź — the multicultural landscape of an industrial city", recognised by presidential regulation on 16 February 2015; Księży Młyn and Scheibler's palace belong to the same listing, which treats the park as part of the industrial complex rather than an ornament beside it.

In December 2007 the park won a competition organised by Briggs & Stratton as the most beautiful park in Poland, and came fifth in Europe.

Getting there

• On foot — from Piotrkowska street east along Aleja Piłsudskiego, about fifteen minutes
• By tram — lines running along Aleja Piłsudskiego stop at Przędzalniana, a few minutes from the gates
• By car — approach from Przędzalniana or Fabryczna; the streets around the park are inside the municipal parking zone
• Nearby — Księży Młyn and the Museum of Cinematography are next door, so the whole group fits into one afternoon

Before you go

The two halves feel quite different. Źródliska I is a walking park of ponds, lawns and the palm house; Źródliska II is closer to a residential garden, planted by Scheibler with species brought from far away. An hour is enough for a loop of both, half a day if you add the palm house and the museum.

The ground is mostly flat and the paths are surfaced, but after a long spell of rain it gets soggy — the water that gave the park its name has not gone anywhere. Autumn is the best time, when the old oaks by the pond turn one after another.

How to get there and practical info

Location

Łódź, between Przędzalniana, Fabryczna and Targowa streets and Aleja Piłsudskiego, next to Księży Młyn

Area

17.2 hectares, divided into Źródliska I (east) and Źródliska II (west)

Laid out

1840; the only municipal park in Łódź until 1875

Highlights

palm house, three ponds with an island, monumental oaks, bandstand, grotto with a terrace, Scheibler's palace with the film museum

Protection

register of monuments no. A/303, 6 December 1984; inside the Monument of History "Łódź — the multicultural landscape of an industrial city", 16 February 2015

Time needed

an hour for the park, half a day including the palm house and museum

Admission

the park is open and free; the palm house is ticketed

Current hours and tickets

Łódź Botanical Garden, which runs the palm house

When to go