Széchenyi palace, Nagycenk (Nagycenk)

 museum, park, mansion / manor house / villa

Széchenyi palace, Nagycenk

The palace was built in 1750 by count Antal Széchenyi. His successor was Ferenc Széchenyi, an enlightened aristocrat, who was the founder of the Hungarian National Museum and the National Széchenyi Library.

After his death, one of his sons, István Széchenyi inherited the estate and the palace in Nagycenk. István Széchenyi was a great reformer, one of the greatest statesmen of the Hungarian history. He donated the establishment of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, organized the first horse races in Hungary and founded the National Club, a forum for the patriotic Hungarian nobility. He wrote a series of political writings, commissioned and supervised the regulation of the lower Danube, supported the construction of the first permanent bridge between the the two cities of Pest and Buda (later unified as Budapest) which now bears his name as „Széchenyi Lánchíd”.

On the basis of his experimences abroad, he founded a model farm in his Nagycenk estate in 1820. The palace was reconstructed between 1834-40 by architect Ferdinánd Hild. There were bathrooms and flush toilets installed in the palace – these installations were extraordinary rarities at that time, even in palaces.

The next owner of the estate and palace was Béla Széchenyi, the son of István Széchenyi, who became known for wide travels and explorations in the East Indies, Japan, China, Java, Borneo, western Mongolia, and the frontiers of Tibet. He turned the park of the palace into a dendrological garden.

The palace was badly damaged during the II. World War. It was renovated between 1969 and 1976, and in 1973 the Memorial Museum of István Széchenyi was opened in it. The eastern part of the building complex houses the stud-farm, in the western part of it, in the so-called „Red Palace” the Palace Hotel (hotel, restaurant, coffee-bar) is arranged.

The Memorial Museum of István Széchenyi consists of two parts. On the ground floor the history of the Széchenyi family and the life of István Széchenyi is shown, in suites of the age of Széchenyi. On the first floor economic exhibitions are organized, in connection with the lifework of the „greatest Hungarian” (as István Széchenyi is referred to in Hungary).

Owing to the activity of Béla Széchenyi, we can find a lot of rare tree species of four continents int he dendrological garden, such as magnolia trees, Gymnocadus dioicus (iron trees), Himalaya and Caucasian pine trees, Californian mammoth tree, etc. The 150- year-old sycamore trees are especially beautiful.

The wife of Antal Széchenyi had an avenue of lime-trees planted. The 2,5 km long avenue of 250-year-old lime-trees starting from the main entrance of the estate is under nature conservation.

The front French-type Baroque garden called „parter” is tried to be reconstructed in the same „embroidery-style” as it was developped in 1760.