The windmill was originally built in 1836 in a village called Płonka-Matyski located next to the town of Łapy, from where it was moved in 1954 to Rzędziany near Tykocin. The object was still used until the end of the 1950s. It was relocated to the museum in 1986. The windmill has a post structure, which means that the whole body of the mill is mounted on a single post, from which these mills take their name, The Windmill was turned to face the wind with a steering rod protruding from its posterior wall. więcej
The walls are built on a frame and covered from the outside with wooden boards. The gable roof is covered with shingles. Interestingly, the grinding gear and sail power take-off mechanism is fully intact, with a uniquely large break wheel.
The smithy, or forge, was built in 1914 and was still used until the mid-1970s. In 1983 it was moved to the open-air museum. Its floor plan is almost square, 5.5×6.3m. The foundation is laid on fieldstones bound together with concrete mortar. The walls are made from split logs with dovetail notches with butt ends. The gable roof is made of rafters and collars, and is covered with shingles. więcej
The entrance to the building is made of a double gate. Inside, there is a remarkable furnace (horno) made of clay covered brick, with a large hood and a leather bellows for feeding air to the fire pit. The forge was purchased fully equipped in over one hundred tools, including two anvils and a wall mounted drill. In front of the forge is a sandstone crank grinding wheel used for sharpening tools. Today the interior of the forge is fully furnished, making it possible to hold blacksmithing crafts displays for children and young people.
Poczopek is situated by the Białystok-Krynki road between Talkowszczyzna and Ostrów Północny. With walls made of posts and planks and covered with a gable, shingled roof, the granary is located right next to the brick and mortar museum office building. Erected in the early 1920s, the building was relocated to the museum in 1986. In the 1940s, the granary was remodelled into a two-floor building and adapted into a pine cone drier. więcej
Today it is used for storage.
Next to the entrance to the museum there is an inscribed granite stone: The inscription reads “1682 AIBD”, which likely stands for “Anno Domini 1682”, with the initials of its maker or founder. więcej
The stone was moved to the museum in 2000 from Nowa Wieś near Dąbrowa Białostocka.
The forest farmstead comprises of four buildings: a cabin, a barn, a granary, and a livestock shed, all of which are placed exactly like they were originally built in Łazarz nature reserve near Karczmisko. All of the buildings were relocated to the museum in the late 1980s. The Forester’s cabin was moved from Lipniak, near the Suwałki-Puńsk road. więcej
Built in 1924, during the Second World War the cabin was deserted and devastated. It was fully renovated in 1947, restoring it to its original function as an administrative and residential building. In 1986, State Forests donated the Cabin to the open-air museum. The forester’s cabin design is related to manor architecture. It is a two-bay, ground floor building with a partially usable attic. Its hip roof is covered with ceramic slates.
Three buildings, a barn, a granary, and a livestock shed, were moved to the museum from a forest farmstead in Karczmisko, located near Czarna Wieś Kościelna, Czarna Białostocka municipality. Built in the early 1920s, the barn was erected on a fieldstone foundation and has post and plank walls. więcej
What is unique about this barn is that it has a double gate not only on its front wall, facing the yard, but also on its two end walls. The barn’s jerkinhead roof is laid with shingles, and its gables are covered with vertical boards, with rectangular window cut-outs. The barn houses a permanent display of tools used for harvesting and processing grains in a typical old Podlaskie farm.
A wide-front side building erected circa. 1920, with three doors facing the yard. The granary has post and plank walls and a gable, jerkinhead roof covered with wood shingles. Inside, the granary is divided into two rooms, with wooden stairs on one of its end walls leading to the attic. więcej
Today the building is used for storage.
Originally, the shed housed cattle and sheep. One of the beams on its eastern wall has an inscription commemorating the year of construction – 1925. Its walls are made of posts and logs, connected in the corner with dovetail notches. It has three doors, two with one wing and one with two wings. Its jerkinhead roof is covered with shingles. więcej
From the yard side, the roof has two extensions, or dormers, with doors which made it easier to load or unload hay from the attic. Inside, the shed is a single room which was adapted into a permanent display of the various means of transportation used in the countryside, that is why the floor was covered with wooden boards and its original partition wall was removed.
The farmstead complex is supplemented by a cellar, which is fully reconstructed to reflect the original cellar in Karczmisko.
The cabin, built in 1923, was relocated to the museum from Krusznik (Nowinka municipality) in 1985. This is a typical building built by the State Forests in the 1920s for its forest workers. Because the building has a cellar, the foundation in the museum was changed from stone to concrete. więcej
The log and corner post walls are covered from the outside with boards, which are placed horizontally up to the bottom of the window edge and vertically above the sill. The hip roof is covered with shingles. The front entrance has a porch with a gable roof supported on four posts, and a balustrade with carved bannisters. The interior is divided into three parts: the kitchen, a hall, and the main room. In the kitchen there is a recreated brick stove, covered with clay, with a bread oven and a hood above the fireplace.
In front of the cabin there is a livestock shed dating back to the 1920s, relocated from the same forest farmstead in Krusznik as the cabin. The wide-front building is divided into four rooms and has a flat shingled roof with an extension for loading hay to the attic. więcej
The roof also has two triangular windows serving as skylights.
The barn was originally built in Koryciny (Wdowin forest district farmstead), Grodzisk municipality, in 1932, and was moved to the museum in 1998. The building has post and plank walls with boarded corners. The gable roof is made of rafters and collars, and is covered with shingles. The entrance to the building is made of a double gate. więcej
Inside, the building is divided into a concave and two grain bins, with the right one acting as an indoor granary. Currently, the barn functions as storage space.
Right next to the woodsman’s cabin farmstead fence there is an inscribed stone with a sign in Russian commemorating the first valuation of the Knyszyn Forest conduced in the mid-19th century. więcej
The windmill was relocated from Wojnowce, Szudziałowo municipality. The builder and owner of the windmill was Stefan Radzikiewicz, who started the construction right after the end of the Second World War. The construction and equipping of the windmill lasted until his death in 1970. Since then, the mill was not used. więcej
The windmill uses unique solutions for placing its movable body on the foundation, like a paltrok mill. The stone base has four beams – the foundation, to which a round rail is attached, functioning as the bottom part of a sliding bearing. The axis has a vertical beam (sztember) which supports the whole structure. The post and beam walls are covered from the outside with vertical boards. Two doors can be used to enter the mill – the bottom is a regular walkway while the top doors are used for transportation purposes. The gable roof is covered with vertical, overlapping boards. Four sails of the mill are attached to the shaft made of a cannon barrel. The power from the shaft is transmitted through a system of steel gears to grinding spindles made carved from granite.
A reconstructed wooden cross by sculptor Marek Szyszko created in 2016. The cross itself and its decorations are modelled on works of Piotr Radkiewicz, a sculptor from first half of the 20th century working in the area of Suchowola, Janów, and Korycin. więcej
The lapidarium gathers inscribed tombstones from the past Białystok voivodship. The collection includes an impressive stele on a stone base with an illegible sign, brought here from Olsza (Dąbrowa Białostocka municipality). According to the locals, it commemorated the site where a Russian general died. więcej
Another interesting exhibit, a grey granite stone called a Prussian “baba” stone, from Pieńki (Michałowo municipality), has an anthropomorphic shape, depicting a human head and upper body. The head is separated from the torso by a deep notch. Three crosses with spreading arms are carved where the face is. The stone dates back to the early middle ages. The rest of the stones in the lapidarium were sculpted in the 19th century.
The barn, built in Sanniki (Krynki municipality) at the end of the 19th century) has a unique roof with a transom bar supported by two forked ploughs. Only a handful of similar objects have survived in Podlaskie until today. The four vertical forked posts, called ploughs, support horizontal beams called transom bars, and make up the roof’s ridge. więcej
Inside, the room has two concaves and three grain bins. The hip roof is covered with thatch.
The cottage from Jacowlany (Sidra municipality) was built at the end of the 19th century. Its relocation started in 2009 and took 5 years to complete. What sets this building apart from other objects in the museum is its roof cover – aspen shavings. więcej
The cottage is set on a foundation made from loose stones. The log and corner post walls are whitewashed from the outside. Its end wall has an extension with a double gate, serving as a utility room.
The granary from Lewki, Dąbrowa Białostocka municipality, was built at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, and was relocated to the museum in 2009. The building is seated on loose field stones has a log frame. The oak beams of the walls are connected in the corners with dove tail notches. In the front, its extended roof forms a porch. więcej
The rear wall is a single plane with the end wall, which is a common element of a ribbed vault roof. The gable is covered with laths.
The hut was built in the mid-19th century in Stara Grzybowszczyzna, a small village on the edge of the Knyszyn Forest. Its interior layout was common in the Białystok area, connecting the residential and utility area under one roof. The whole building is set on a foundation made from loose field stones. The log and corner post walls are whitewashed from the outside. więcej
The Dutch roof, covered with thatch, takes its shape from the times of chimneyless huts. In buildings of this type, the smoke from the stove went to the attic, from where it was released from the building by an opening in the peak of the roof. Inside, the building golds furniture and equipment from the early 20th century.
The early 20th century barn from Nowe Ostrowie is a typical example of an eastern Białystok region barn. This building has two grain bins, and only one entrance. It also has an extension which was used as a sty. Its foundation is made of field stones. Its log post and plank walls, are made from semi-circular beams, jointed in the corners, and with extended butts. więcej
The hip roof is covered with thatch. The barn has an extended roofing which protects a wooden horse mill from Suchowola. The mill was used for crushing tanbark in a workshop owned by a Tatar family. Where the break wheel connects with the vertical axle a prayer (daławar) was found, written down on paper, which was supposed to ensure the mill’s users success. The diameter of the break wheel is close to four meters. The horse mill is made of pinewood, and the prongs are made of hornbeam. The bark was crushed in a mortar (stępa), which had the form of a horizontal log with four carved notches which were hit with crushers (stępor) propelled by the mill.
Hayricks were built in the fields where hay was cut, but also within farmsteads. In the past, they were used for storing hay, more seldom wheat. This only happened when the harvested wheat did not fit in the barn or, in extreme situations, when the farmers did not have a barn. Wheat was stored in the hayrick until the time for thrashing in winter. więcej
Hay from the hayricks in the field was transported during winter, when the rivers, streams, and bogs were frozen, making it possible to access the areas which were inaccessible during summer. Hayricks started disappearing from the regional landscape on a mass scale in the 1970s, and today they are almost impossible to find.
Hayricks are built on four posts, 5-7 meters long, usually made from pine, sometimes from spruce. Resinous wood was preferred due to its increased durability. The posts were buried in 1 meter deep holes in the corners of the hayricks, which was usually a square with a 3, 4 or even 5 meter side. The size of the rick depended on the area of the meadow owned by the farmer. Every few years, the posts were cut at the buried part to ensure the stability of the structure. Each pole had holes drilled every 30 centimetres, starting at 2 meters, for pegs holding the roof of the hayrick. The pegs had to be thick enough to ensure that the roof does not collapse under snow. Some farmers put the roof directly on the hay and used the pegs to keep the roof from being blown away by the wind. The roof was either hip or conical, gradually being replaced by gable roofs. The framework was made from wooden poles and covered with thatch, sometimes with laths or cane. The ground in the hayrick was covered with grey willow, juniper or other bush or tree twigs, to protect the hay from moisture.
Almost every farmstead had a cellar used for storing produce, fruit, milk products, smoked meats. The cellar reconstructed in the museum is a dugout typical for eastern Podlasie. więcej
The structure is a 2 meter deep hole in the ground with walls lined with stone or reinforced with boards, with a thatched gable roof. The roof rests on a wooden frame attached to the stones.
The house was built in 1922 in Usza Wielka near Ciechanowiec, and was moved to the museum in 1988. It has a mortared, stone and concrete foundation. The walls are corner notched and are covered with boards, with small grooves along the long edges. The windows have panelled shutters. There is a glazed porch in the front side of the house. więcej
The gable roof is covered with shingles. The house has numerous decorations on the corners, above the windows and along the boarding. The interior was adapted into a residential area for the museum’s staff and guest rooms.
The granary was built around 1880 and was relocated to the museum in 1989 from Dąbrowa Wielka (Czyżew municipality). The building rests on a fieldstone foundation. Its walls are made from pine logs cut on a pit saw, reinforced with dowels, and with moss filling in the gaps. więcej
The corners are notched in a dovetail without butts. The rafter and collar roof is covered with ceramic slates. The granary has a partially extended roof with stairs leading to the loft. The entrance to the building is made of a double gate, with panelled decorations on the exterior. Inside there is a boarded bins (zasiek) for storing the grains.
The granary was built in 1897 (the year is painted just above the door) from Brzóski Stare near Wysokie Mazowieckie. The narrow front building is set on a foundation made from large field stones. Its walls are made of pine logs connected in a dovetail fashion. więcej
The door, with a decorative boards, have a large blacksmith lock. The hip rafter and collar roof is has an extension over the front door wall and is covered with thatch. The single-room interior has stairs to the usable loft.
Next to the crossroad there is a wooden cross and a Pole shrine with a statue of Saint John of Nepomuk, modelled after the shrines typically built in the Biebrza river region. This saint is one of the most common depictions in shrine statuettes in North-eastern Poland. Tradition holds that St. John guarded all river and stream crossings, and that is where shrines with his image are found most frequently. więcej
Unfortunately, today all of the old wooden shrine statues are lost and are replaced only in special circumstances. The wooden cross was designed and created by a student of the Arts High school in Supraśl under the supervision of Wojciech Załęski, and recreates the cross from Ostrowie Północne.
The two wooden roadside crosses, reconstructions of crosses by Piotr Radkiweicz, were erected in the museum in 2010. Piotr Radkiewicz was a folk sculptor working in the first half of the 20th century in Okopy near Suchowola. He created over one hundred unusually decorative wooden roadside crosses in dozens of towns and villages in norther Białystok Region. więcej
Approximately thirty have survived until today, although most of them lost their sculpted decorations such as angels, birds, the host, equipment connected with the Lord’s Passion, etc. The museum has crosses modelled after similar objects from Olszanka and Kuplisk. The decorations in the museum exhibits were created by Piotr Szałkowski, a sculptor from Sokółka.
The manor from Bobra Wielka near Dąbrowa Białostocka is the largest exhibit building in the Podlaskie Folklore Museum. Built in 1817-1818 by Michał Butowt Andrzejkowicz, Marshall of Grodno District and future Governor of Grodno and Volyn. The construction of the manor involved extending the park layout and building a one-storey old storage room (lamus). więcej
The lime and maple lined driveway had an elliptic flower bed with a sundial. At the turn of the century and during the interwar period, the manor in Bobra Wielka was an important social meeting place in the region. Its guest included the renowned historian Tadeusz Korzon and prominent photographer Jan Bułhak. For a time, its resident was the prolific author Wanda Miłaszewska. In 1944 it was abandoned by its last owner, Tadeusz Tomaszewski. Later, until its dismantling and relocation to the museum, it was the headquarters of local state-owned farms (PGR).
With a six column portico and hip gable roof covered with shingles, the building represents a typical land-owner manor with classical features. The two-bay interior has a layout based on an enfilade and includes a dining room, a light and dark salon, a hall, a chancellery, a kitchen, and utility rooms. Unfortunately, only a few pieces of original furniture and several other memorabilia have survived until today. The material presenting the interior decoration before the Second World War is also scant. Currently the building has a full basement. The manor will be used for two permanent displays – ground floor will present manor interiors before the Second World War, and the attic will be used for displaying folk art, with its strongest regional accents: weaving, pottery, braiding and sculpture. The enfilade with the largest room in the building will be used for temporary displays.
The manor Granary from Stara Wieś, located in the Biała Rawska municipality, was relocated to the museum in 1998. The 18th century log building has protruding butts and is laid in a loose field stone foundation. The beams have small cut-outs adding more light to the interior. więcej
The hip roof has dormers and is covered with shingles. The two-storey interior has a wooden, winder staircase. Inside, there are two permanent exhibitions: Through the Valleys of Rivers and Wooden House Decoration in the Białystok Area.
The granary was built around 1880 and was relocated to the museum in 1989 from a manor settlement in Gąsówka Stara (Łapy municipality). Earlier, the building was situated within the same farmstead. The wide front granary has walls made of pine logs, connected in the corners with dovetail joints, without protruding butts. więcej
The front of the building has an extended roof resting on poles, and two semi-circle windows on both sides of the door. The gable jerkinhead roof is covered with shingles. The granary was mainly used for storing grain – on the ground floor in large grain bins and chests, and in smaller bins in the attic. In the museum, the interior was adapted for holding exhibitions.
Right next to the fork of the road before the farmstead there is a menage, a building erected in 1930 in the shape of a regular octagon, moved to the museum from Tybory Uszyńskie (Kulesze Kościelne municipality). Its walls are a wooden frame, and it has a ridgeless thatched roof. The manage housed a wooden horse mill powered by one or two horses. więcej
Power was transmitted from the mill to a thresher of a chaff cutter.
Originally built in 1923, the barn was moved to a different location within the same farmstead in 1947. During the relocation, the roof framework was changed from hip to gable, and its gate was enlarged. With post and plank walls and a thatched roof, the barn had three concaves and an indoor granary. więcej
The barn was used for storing grains, straw, sleds and carts, wind separator, and a thresher. The barn was moved to the museum in 2011, where, after reassembling, it is used for storage.
The brick shrine was built in 2010 and is a copy of a shrine in Twarogi Lackie, Perlejewo commune. The shrine is plastered and whitewashed, and has a forged cross. Its front recess has a polychromic figure of the Holy God Mother and Child, made by Piotr Szałkowski, an exact copy of the figure from Twarogi. więcej
The house from Piszczaty-Piotrowięta, Kobylin-Borzymy municipality, was built in 1920, and its reassembly in the museum was completed in 1994. The building has post and plank walls with a mortared field stone foundation. The exterior walls have ornamental boarding. Its gable roof is covered with ceramic slates. więcej
This building has particularly interesting ornaments on its gables in the form of decorative rosette cut-outs (pazdury). The coloured glass veranda also draws a lot of attention. Note: this part of the farmstead is unavailable for visitors.
The barn was built in the first half of the 19th century in a village in the Knyszyn Forest. Around the year 1900 it was purchased and moved from its original location to Jurowce. In 1998 the barn was translocated to the museum. A wide front building with log walls, it has a thatched gable roof. więcej
Inside, the building is divided into a concave and two grain bins. The most interesting feature of its design is the double gate hanged on rockers with independent arms. Currently, the barn is used for storage.
First built in Tymianki-Bucie at the end of the 19th century, the granary was moved to the museum in 1986. A narrow front building with walls made from pine logs connected in a dovetail fashion. The hip roof has an extension over the front door wall and is covered with thatch. więcej
The granary was originally used for storing grains.
The cottage from Pieczyski (Perlejewo municipality), built in 1864, is a residential building which styled after a minor gentry manor, typical for the Mazovia-Podlasie borderland. A large building (13.5 x 10 m), its interior layout is a common dual cottage, also called a double. As the name suggests, inside there is a doubled layout of another equally popular cottage layout, a trojak (triple). The foundation is made of field stones. więcej
Its pine log walls are boarded from the outside with vertical planks. The porch has a gable roof and a slat grating between the posts. The building is covered with a thatched hip roof. Inside, the layout is symmetrical. The hall leads to the main chamber and kitchen, and to the so-called wide chimney, a room used for storage and smoking food. Behind the kitchen and main chamber there are two smaller closets (alkierz), which lead to another small room behind the chimney, the so-called wardrobe (garderóbka). The cottage has a recreated system of fire stoves which include a kitchen stove with a bread baking nook and two brick heating stoves. The interior is adapted for holding workshops, displays and educational activities.
The granary, built in the 1920s, was moved to the museum in 1989. Seated in a fieldstone foundation, the building has pine log walls trimmed at the edges with a dovetail notch. Its gable roof has an approximately 1 m extension above the front door wall. więcej
The interior is divided into three rooms, with two small rooms right next to the door.
The apiary is an addition to the beekeeping exhibition in the granary. It consists of fourteen beehives: the first row includes two hives recreating old tree trunk hives, and six wooden “Warsaw” box hives, narrow and wide type. In the second row, apart from a Warsaw box hive, there are four tree trunk hives with a Warsaw cabinet from the early 20th century, brought to the museum from Cieliczanka near Supraśl. więcej
The hives are opened on the sides and have two or three entrance openings. There is one more hive in front of the granary, a Dadant hive, newest in the whole collection.
The cottage from Dąbrowa-Moczydły (Szepietowo municipality), built in 1926, is unique for its decorative richness. Its porch is particularly interesting, with decorative cut-out decals floral and geometrical patterns, and an ornamental board gable a profiled pinnacles – roof ridge decoration pins. The corners, window headers, and end walls of the building are also decorated. więcej
The straw roofing is covered with ornamental cornices called, due to their function, wind ties.
The post and plank walls are made from wooden logs. The thatched gable roof is has a specific ridge support in the form of cross-mounted debarked poles, called koźliny. The cottage has a two-bay layout, with rooms spread axially around the central chamber chimney. A kitchen stove with a bread baking nook and two heating stoves, all made from brick and clay, make up the cottage’s impressive fire system. Inside there is an exhibit on children in the country.
The granary from Mierzewino Duże near Brańsk was built around 1890 and was moved to the museum in 1988. The building draws attention mainly because of its extended roof (podcień) on the front and end wall. Its hip roof is covered with thatch, and is supported on the front side by four round posts. więcej
The foundation is laid with field stones, and its logs have a dovetail corner notch. The granary was used for storing grains and various tools used in a farm.
This reconstruction of a pigeon house was based on the descriptions contained in works by father Krzysztof Kluk, an 18th century naturalist living in Ciechanowiec, and Zygmunt Gloger. więcej
Gloger was the author of “Wooden architecture and wooden objects in historical Poland”, where he listed many similar dovecotes (called gołębieniec) existing somewhere in Podlasie, especially in manors. It is worth noting that dovecotes were not only built for keeping pigeons, but also to add beauty to the farmsteads.
The livestock shed from Perki-Mazowsze was built on the turn of the 19th century with a thatched gable roof. From the front side, the top wall logs are slightly extended along the wall outlines. The interior is divided into three compartments, each with a separate door. więcej
The two outermost were used for keeping livestock, and the central one was used for storing firewood and farm tools. The livestock compartments are lightened with a very characteristic diamond-shaped cuts in the logs.
The Tymianki-Bucie Cottage was built at the end of the 19th century and was moved to the museum with the rest of the buildings from the farmstead (stable, barn, and cowshed) in 1986. Unfortunately, a fire in November of 1994 consumed everything in the farmstead (along with five other objects) except for the residential buildings. więcej
The cottage is typical house triple trojak house, and, as the name suggests, has three rooms. The house is set on a foundation made from field stones bound together with concrete. Its log walls are made from pine and have a dovetail notch. The hip roof is covered with thatch.
The village of Tymianki-Bucie is a small hamlet located in Nur Land in Mazovia. Bucie is one of the settlements around Tymianki, a gentry’s residence established in the first half of the 15th century. This area was bordered on one side by Bielsk Land, in the Podlaskie Voivodship, and on the eastern side by Ciechanowiec, a private town. Today Tymianki is part of a hamlet complex inhabited by the descendants of minor gentry, who now make a living in agriculture. Being part of the gentry was not only a matter of documents, but also resulted from traditions, family relations, lineage history passed on from generation to generation in stories and tales, as well as cultivation of rituals and customs recognized as proper for that community.
The chicken coop is a reconstruction of the same structure which was consumed by a fire, brought to the museum from Kramkowo Lipskie (Nur municipality). A small building set on a stone foundation, it has log walls and a small thatched gable roof. więcej
Built at the end of the 19th century in Zawyki (Suraż municipality), the barn was moved to the museum in 1999. It is set on a foundation made from loose field stones. The walls are made from split pine logs. The rafter and collar Dutch roof is covered with thatch. więcej
The barn’s entrance is made of a double gate. Inside there is a clay concave with two grain bins on the sides. The building is currently used for storage.
The barn was built in 1922 in a farmstead owned by the local Forest Inspectorate. It was used for storing machinery used for forest work, such as ploughs for creating fireguards, skidding tools, or dibble bars (kosztur) used for digging holes for planting seedlings. więcej
The barn was actively used until the 1990s and was donated to the museum in 2012. The post and plank building has a slated gable roof. In the centre of the front wall it has a double swing gate.
The fire hall was moved to the museum in 1986 from Rudka, a municipal town near Brańsk. The building was erected in 1925 with significant financial aid from count Franciszek Potocki who financed, among other things, the construction lumber and donated the land. The fire hall was built by all of the Rudka locals as a community action. więcej
It was not only a storage area for the firefighters’ equipment, but also a typical county house, being a meeting place for all of Rudka community. The fire hall functioned also as a theatre, which is why it has a scene for performing plays. During shows, the firefighting equipment was moved outside.
The fire hall has a stone and concrete foundation with a brick belt. Its post and plank walls are made from logs with dovetail notches. The buildings has two external double doors. Next to the herringbone door there used to be a bell which was used for alarming the fire brigade. The fire hall has frame, double casement windows, each divided into six panels. The gable jerkinhead roof is covered with eternit, the same material which was used in its construction during the interwar period.
The water mill was relocated to the museum from Bagniuki, a village located right next to the Siemianówka Reservoir. The mill was built around 1940 and was used for multiple purposes, being equipped with gears for grinding grains, pressing oil, carding wool, and saws for processing lumber. więcej
The wheel has wooden paddles which were propelled by water flowing from the nearby lake. One of the interesting features of the mill is a carding unit, built by a country craftsman over 150 years ago. Powered by the water wheel, it was used for processing wool fleece, which was still used for spinning in the 1960s.
The mill’s foundation is made from mortared stones. Its post and plank walls are made from logs with dovetail notches. The gable roof is covered with shingles. The end wall has an extension used for storage.
Behind the water mill there is a barn from Reduty (Orla municipality) from the second half of the 19th century. The building is covered with a thatched hip roof. więcej
This is the first building in the section which will be devoted to architecture from Bielsk Podlaski, Hajnówka and Narew area. In the near future, the section will also feature two houses from the municipal town of Czyże.
The mill from Bogdanki (Juchnowiec Kościelny municipality), is an interesting example of a small Dutch windmill. It was built in 1938 by Wacław Jaroszko, the mill’s one-man designer, builder and user. The owner used the mill for his own needs, usually grinding rye for wholemeal flour. więcej
During a storm one night in 1956 the mill’s sails were destroyed. Due to the owner’s poor health, the repairs were impossible.
The structure is supported on six poles functioning as the mill’s framework, fixed on top by two layers of boards cut in a circle. The upper, movable part consists of three layers of boards, also cut in a circle, which support the truss of the gable roof. The contact surface between the stationary and movable part was lubricated with beeswax. Inside, at approximately 1.5 m high, there is a system of granite grinding stones propelled by a transmission unit connected to six sails, covered with split pine strips of wood.
On the other side of the pasture there is a country school building from Kalinowo-Solki (Kulesze Kościelne municipality), built in the 1950s. Its foundation is made from mortared field stones. The pine log walls are corner notched with purlins cut in a dovetail. The jerkinhead roof is covered with metal tile sheeting. więcej
The ground floor has three large rooms where lessons were held. Teachers working at the school lived in the loft. The school building has a display on typical school interiors from the middle of the previous century, and rooms for educational classes.
The building was relocated to the museum from Bryki (Drohiczyn municipality) in 1990. At its original site, it was built in a rich farmstead around 1900 and was a part of a circular setup. It was used for keeping horses, cattle and pigs, and its loft was used for storing hay and straw. Due to the low ground level, the interior was adapted for moving manure two or three times a year. więcej
The livestock shed is a single bay building on a rectangular plan, set on a foundation made from field stones bound together with concrete. Its log walls, with a pit saw corner trim, are connected with posts, and have a dovetail corner notch. Inside, the building has three rooms, each with a separate entrance. The thatched hip roof has an extension supported on beams, covering the front door wall.
Right next to the entrance to Folwark Nadawki there is a railway watchman’s hut. The watchman living in the hut looked after a section of the railway track between Białystok and Wasilków. This object built at the turn of the 19th and 20th century presents a typical design of such buildings during the reign of the Tsars. więcej
The hut is set on a concrete foundation and has a walls made from round logs. Originally, such buildings were not covered with boards, but in this case, in the middle of the 20th century, the logs extending beyond the frame of the wall were cut and boarded. Inside, the hut has two rooms, and part of the dividing wall was made up from a tile stove.