731. The following years brought the monastery even greater problems, from damages during the Confederation of Bar to the great fire in 1790. The building declined even further because of the dissolution of Cistercian order in 1819. Since then, the process of prolonged destruction of the object has begun, as a result of which the abbots palace and part of the monastery were demolished. Restoration work, renovations and adaptations began in the 20th century, and the Cistercians returned to Sulejow in 1986.
The monastery was situated on a lofty terrace, on the right bank of the Pilica River, which in the 12th century flowed only a few dozen meters south of the abbey. On the eastern side, a small stream of Radońka had its course, while in the north the village of Podklasztorze developed, with its settlement reaching the end of the tenth century.
Built in the first half of the 13th century, the monastery church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Thomas of Canterbury received the form of an orientated, three-nave, four-bay basilica with a transept and rectangular chancel, built from precisely machined sandstone blocks of considerable size. The opus emplectum technique was used, i.e. the sandstone face of the walls with an average thickness of about 0.9 meters from the inside was filled with rubble and bricks covered with mortar. In the corners of the church between the arms of the transept and the rectangular chancel there are two rectangular chapels measuring 3.4 x 4.5 meters. The nave reached 14.2 x 23.2 meters inside, transept 5.2 x 19.5 meters, and the presbytery reached 6 x 7.6 meters.
In the central part of the west facade a romanesque portal with three columns on each side is placed in the cover protruding in front of the wall. Originally, it had a carved tympanum, after which only the braid decoration has remained. There were two entrances to the aisles: the northern and southern from the cloister. Above the main portal a window with an eight-part rosette of considerable size was pierced, similar cylindrical windows were placed in the eastern facade of the chancel and in the northern transept. In the gable wall of the chancel, the rosette was placed above the triad of windows with profiled frames with pellet decoration embedded in the archivolt. The side elevations of the church were divided by flat buttresses or pilaster strips, between which semicircular, small windows were pierced.
The interior of the church is characterized by clear divisions and consistent composition. Inter-nave arcades with squat pillars and semicircular arches support the high walls, the upper part of which is separated by a cornice and contains windows. Above the cornice, on the capitals of semi-columns are massive arch bands, and prominent ribs are mounted on corbels added on the sides of the lesenes. The inter-nave pillars were equipped with semi-columns on which the internal stepped arcades are separated, receiving one of the classical motifs of western romanism. The naves of the church is covered with rib vaults separated by massive arch bands.
Access to the attic of the aisles was provided by semi-circular vaulted narrow passages at the height of the organ gallery. In the eastern part of the church, in the chapels and the northern transept, semicircular niches of piscinas for washing liturgical vessels with preserved chute channels and cupboards were placed. In the southern wall of the nave, within the cloister running there, there was a semicircular niche with a seat, a place where the abbot sat at certain hours, giving advices to monks.
The monastery buildings were adjoined to the church from the south, but in the first half of the 13th century only the eastern wing, adjacent to the transept, was built. It was erected of bricks with the use of sandstone to make structural elements and architectural details. The eastern wing reached 35 meters long and 12 meters wide. From the north, in the ground floor, there was a sacristy, chapter house, stairs to the dormitory located at the upper floor, under which there was a prison (acce