Land Credit Society in Lublin

In the years 1873-1876, a two-storey building of the Land Credit Society was erected at 43 Krakowskie Przedmieście Street in Lublin. The palace became a representative eclectic building with a characteristic colonnade in front of the main entrance. It was designed by Julian Ankiewicz. Later reconstructions were carried out by Ludwik Szamota. The façade is crowned by a decorative sculpture with three female figures. Two of them are the Roman goddesses Fortuna and Cerera. The first one is depicted with a wheel symbolising the changeability of fate and luck, the second one with ears signifying prosperity. Their presence referred to the activities of the institution located here at that time. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the number of credit companies increased in the Kingdom of Poland. The Land Credit Society (Towarzystwo Kredytowe Ziemskie), established in the 1920s in the Kingdom of Poland, provided services to estate owners, who also conducted their business in the cities. The situation was similar in Lublin.

In 1899, under the presidency of Eustachy Świeżawski, the Lublin Agricultural Society was established at one of the meetings in the boardroom at Krakowskie Przedmieście Street. The event was described in the widely read "Ilustrowany Tygodnik" with a photograph of the palace taken by Alexander Stepanoff.

In 1925, the headquarters of the Lublin Land Credit Society became the property of the Land Bank in Warsaw. Then it was purchased by Zjednoczony Bank Ziemiański S.A. In 1934, the building was purchased by the State Treasury to be used as the Court of Appeal. At that time the building was modernised by supplying it with electricity, gas and water and sewage systems.

In 1944, the building of the former Land Credit Society became the seat of Governor Władysław Cholewiński, a delegate of the Polish government in London. Cholewiński was soon deported deep into the Soviet Union, and on the 50th anniversary of that event a commemorative plaque was set into the wall of the palace. In 1949 it housed the Provincial Court. In the 1960s, the rear part was added. A decade later the building was renovated and entered into the register of monuments. Currently, it is the seat of the Regional Court.