Maleszowa

Poland, Poland

---

Maleszowa is a village in south-central Poland's Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, within Opatów County and Gmina Lipniki, first mentioned in a 1365 document by King Casimir the Great granting land to knight Wierzbięta z Maleszowa of the Gryf coat-of-arms.

Around 1520, Stanisław Maleszowski built a Gothic defensive manor or small castle called "Żurawie Gniazdo" on an artificial island surrounded by a moat with four corner towers, a drawbridge, and four-story structure, later owned from 1576 by Stanisław Krasiński, wojewoda płocki.

Rebuilt or expanded by 1629 under the Krasiński family—who hosted figures like young Kazimierz Pułaski—it served as a noble refuge during the 1648 Khmelnytsky Uprising before falling into decay after the 1780s as materials were reused, leaving only ruins by 1850 amid economic decline and Russian confiscations.