In what was then the province of West Prussia, not far from Świecie, in the mid eighteenth century the Zboińskis took over a splendid estate-Kozłowo. Towards the end of the century, Kozłowo covered 300 hectares and included: 'a noble property, one manor farm, a mill, distillery [and] brewery'. [1]

During Chopin's visits, this extensive estate, inherited from members of the House 'de Kościelec et Ossówka Zboińskich', [2] was Ksawery Zboiński, also owner at that time of Kowalewo, near Płock. It was to Ksawery Zboiński that Fryderyk referred in his correspondence as 'Mr Zboiński'; and it was doubtless under his care that Fryderyk travelled in 1827 in the direction of West Prussia.

Kozłowo was inherited from Ksawery by his eldest daughter, Julia Joanna Olimpia, who died childless in 1867. The estate then came into the possession of her youngest sister, Kamila, and then her son, Józef Turowski, the last proprietor of the Kozłowo entail estate from the Zboiński line. [3] Fryderyk may have been in Kozłowo, at the home of the Chopins' friends, the Zboińskis, at least twice. However, there is no further information on these brief visits.

Today, nothing remains of the Zboińskis' manor house at Kozłowo. The only reminder of the composer's stay in this hamlet on the River Wda is a stone bearing a commemorative plaque, on which the inscription reads: 'In commemoration of Fryderyk Chopin's sojourn at Kozłowo and Świecie in the summer of 1825 (sic). PTTK Świecie Branch 1985.'

Kozłowo is located in Świecie county, Cuiavia-Pomerania voivodeship, in Pomerania, on the River Wda; it constitutes virtually a suburb of Świecie.

Worth seeing in the area:

• in Chełmno: gothic town wall (with towers), Grudziądz Gate (transformed in 1620 into a chapel), late Renaissance town hall from 1567-72 (now Culmland Museum), six gothic churches (including the churches of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St James, SS Peter and Paul and St John the Baptist
• gothic church of St Nicholas and complex of port granaries from seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Grudziądz

[1] Cit. after A. Bukowski, Pomorskie wojaże Chopina, [Chopin's travels in Pomerania] (Gdańsk, 1993), 30.
[2] Ibid.
[3] See P. Mysłakowski and A. Sikorski.