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Village - type, layout

The most popular in Nizina Sartowicko-Nowska type of the village is the linear riverfront village (rzędówka bagienna). Related to Olęder colonisation, it is characteristic for twenty-one locations^[1]. Homesteads, located in a certain distance from each other, are built on one or both sides of the road. The type with buildings on one side is characteristic for villages located along the Vistula River in the southern part of Nizina^[2].

In such village layout each settler received one, elongated strip of land, perpendicular to the main road. A medium-size farm had two włóki chełmińskie (2 x 16,8ha). As a result the parcel was wide^[3], what allowed the construction of a building with a garden. The village was stretched to the extent that sometimes it was difficult to determine boundaries between different settlements. This terrain is crossed by the characteristic strip layout of fields with drainage channels (illustration

).

The village of Bzowo, having very early origins, preserved the original layout of two settlements - the ring-shaped village and the single-street village. Around the spindle-shaped street are homesteads and a church with a cemetery. The village of Wielki Komórsk has the character of a multi-street village.

In some layouts we can still find traces of old manorial farms. The best preserved, with a large garden complex, is situated in Sartowice. A visible layout can also be found in Górna Grupa.

^[1]This is the type of villages founded by the colonists after the first half of the 16th century. It is also characteristic for earlier villages, colonised by Olęders (originally of single-street character), what is related to drainage of this terrain and change of the fields layout.
^[2] They are villages situated along the embankment from Wielkie Stwolno to Wielki Lubień. Wielkie Zajączkowo, Mątawy and Tryl have homesteads on both sides of the road, like the rest of villages in the western part of Nizina.
^[3] At 30 ha and the 2,5 km length of a given parcel its width had to amount to c.a. 120 m. Compare: Z. Ludkiewicz, op. cit., p. 37.