Szydłowiec

Szydłowiec grew beside a stronghold built on an artificial island, in a district held from the twelfth century by the Odrowąż family. The private town later belonged to the Szydłowiecki and Radziwiłł families. It flourished in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when local sandstone supported a thriving craft of masonry. The easily worked stone was used for the castle, town hall and Church of Saint Sigismund, as well as being sent to Kielce, Kraków and Warsaw. Wars, epidemics and fires later brought a long decline.