Lubin Abbey
Within the walls of the present-day church and Benedictine monastery in Lubiń the whole history of the abbey can be found. The most important part of the complex, which is the church, on the whole represents a Baroque layout and décor. The entrance, located to the west, leads through the vestibule, over which there is a Baroque tower crowned with two-level tented roofs. The tower’s foundations are the former walls of the Romanesque and Gothic building. An organ casing with a 17th-century organ was located within the tower. In the nave all the construction phases of the church can be seen. The lowest part of the walls is Romanesque, while it is worth noticing the portal leading to the Lord Jesus Chapel, which, in the Middle Ages, used to be the entrance to the church. The higher parts of the nave walls are Gothic, where former lancet windows, bricked up during earlier renovation works, are preserved. The nave and the remaining parts of the church were covered with Baroque vaults. In the walls of the nave Renaissance tombstones from the 16th century are to be found. They are dedicated to the Chruszczowski family members of the Trzaska coat of arms: the Lubiń abbots Paweł and Andrzej, as well as Stanisław, presented as a knight on the tombstone. There is another tombstone in the nave, below that of Abbot Paweł, with the image of a knight – the nobleman Adam Bielawski. From the south the nave is adjoined by the Baroque Lord Jesus Chapel. An 18th-century wooden sarcophagus of the blessed father Berdard of Wąbrzeźno is located in the chapel. An epitaph tablet of Władysław Spindleshanks, dating back to the 13th century and found in the 1930s, was reset in the chapel walls. The transverse aisle – the transept, consists of two twin chapels, the northern Saint Benedict chapel and the southern Our Lady of the Rosary chapel. Both are decorated in a Baroque-Rococo style, mostly from the 18th century. The interior’s only later elements are the paintings in the Saint Benedict Chapel showing Saint Benedict, the Guardian Angel and Saint Leonard. The décor of the eastern part of the church is characteristic for Baroque, when a synesthesia of various arts was used – every detail of the interior design is completed by the remaining ones, regarding both the form and the content. For example, the representation of the Assumption on the vault of this part of the church corresponds to its invocation and the church teachings and its patron saints are shown in the décor of the main altar and the stalls.
The monastery buildings do not have such a rich history as the church. In the cloister only fragments of the Romanesque walls and the 16th-century Gothic portal can be found. Epitaphs and commemorative plaques from the 17th and 18th century recall the monastery’s benefactors. They are mementos about Eustachy Wołłtowicz, Jan Tracht Gniński, bishop of Posen and the bishop of Posen and abbot Stanisław Kieszowski. From the south the cloister is adjoined by a parlatory, the room commemorating the visit of Adam Mickiewicz to Lubiń, the library and an oratory (with relics of the Romanesque wall). From the south-eastern side there is an adjacent park, and behind it there is a garden and an orchard. The whole area is surrounded by a wall.