This year we are initiating a new series entitled “Olivia on the trail”. Maybe we will be able to reveal to you places you don’t know yet? In any case, we will show them, suggest what is worth seeing and, hopefully, encourage you to get to know them.

First of all, we will use the suggestions of hiking routes that you will find in our album “Oliwa off the trail” (did you know that we developed and published such an album together with Tomasz Strug, a councillor of the Oliwa district?). This is a unique publication, Oliwa seen through the eyes of its lover and long-time resident, Tomasz. An amazing, extremely interesting guide to unknown places and stories not fully told was created. The album can be found in the lobbies of all our buildings, so we invite you to take a look at its pages.

Tomek Strug’s texts are illustrated with beautiful photos. Here are their authors: Iwo Ledwożyw, Dawid Linkowski, Aleksandra Majewska, Tomek Strug, Sebastian Wilczewski and Krzysztof Bednarski, Daria Boba, Zbigniew Czajka, Izabela Dembkowska, Krzysztof Hewelt, Iwona Karpińska, Agnieszka Suchodolska-Wamka and Beata Zarach from the Oliwia Photography Club.

As part of good neighbourly cooperation, the project of the map of Oliwa was made available to us by the City Initiative Association. Its author is Adam Świerżewski.

And as an encouragement, a few words from the introduction (by way of introduction):)

“Oliwa is a unique district, a kind of time machine. From ultra-modern or almost futuristic places, in a few moments we can move to the past and taste the best that past generations have left behind. Of course, the first associations with Oliwa are the most important icons for centuries: the “Pomeranian Wawel”, i.e. the Oliwa Cathedral, the Abbots’ Palace and the legendary Oliwa Park. Further connotations are the ubiquitous greenery and magnificent buildings, created over the last three centuries. Unlike the destroyed Main and Old Town in Gdańsk, Oliwa gives a sense of authenticity. It is also determined by lesser-known buildings, quiet streets and a huge number of details and signs connecting us with the past. I invite you to discover the “unusual” Oliwa, located off the tourist trail.”

In the first episode of our series “Olivia on the trail” we invite you to visit the Water Forge in the Valley of Gravity (route in the album: “Forest and Water”)

The Water Forge is a still functioning souvenir of the golden times of industrialization of Oliwa based on the waters of the Oliwa Stream. The forge, called the “hammer house” because of the two large hammers working in it, was mentioned for the first time in written sources in 1597. It was built in a deep depression, below the dam damming the waters of the merging Oliwa and Prochowy streams. It worked continuously until 1948.

The wooden building consists of two parts. They were erected on both sides of the Oliwa Stream and the roofed pier. Inside there are three antique water wheels. Two with a diameter of 4 meters drive quarter-ton hammers, the third wheel with a diameter of 3.1 meters drives eccentric shears – a guillotine. The hammers can reach speeds of up to 250 strokes per minute. In the mid-nineteenth century, the forge processed over 186 tons of iron per year. One blacksmith was able to forge about 1000 studs (nails of the time) during the day.

The forge has been a branch of the Museum of Gdańsk for several years. Occasional steel forging demonstrations are organized there. However, it has happened in the last two decades that larger orders were carried out here, thanks to which the hammer mill worked as it did centuries ago. The fence of the nearby Schwabe Manor, known as the “Dwór Oliwski” hotel, was built in this forge.

Since the Middle Ages, as many as 24 plants commonly known as mills have operated on the Oliwa Stream. These were: forges, grain mills, sawmills, powder magazines, fulling mills where cloth was made, breweries or even mills for grinding bones or wood bark.

See you on the road!