Every design for Zgierz

The first written mention of Zgierz comes from a meeting of two dukes of fragmented Piast-ruled Poland, Władysław Odonic and Konrad I of Masovia, which makes it one of the oldest towns in central Poland. It received town rights before 1288 and was a royal town in the Łęczyca Land.

There is a quiet dignity in the town that comes from having survived a great deal. In the nineteenth century it drew cloth-makers from abroad and grew into a centre of the textile trade; in the Second World War the Germans raided and occupied it, persecuted its Jewish community, closed its schools and destroyed its monuments, while a Polish underground stayed active. The Muzeum Miasta Zgierza keeps those chapters together, and the Park Miejski im. Tadeusza Kościuszki offers green space just north of Łódź, with the Bzura running nearby.

At the heart of it all stands the Kościół św. Katarzyny Aleksandryjskiej, and the town has held a St Catherine's Day fair since the early sixteenth century. That long thread is a fine reason to wear Zgierz.