Topoľčianky are first mentioned in writing in 1293 — which is a fact about a document, not about when people arrived, because archaeologists have found settlement here from the sixth and seventh centuries. Where the château stands there was then a fortified house ringed by a water ditch, the standard defence of a lord in flat country: no crag to build on, so you dig. The family that held the estate took its name from the village, and in the fourteenth century its head, Comes Haslav, was granted the right to pan gold out of the local stream. A later lord is remembered as Peter Ryžiar — Peter the Panner — and the estate's own history admits that under him and his sons the family turned to robbery, which ended in courts, prison and executions.Topoľčianky sú písomne doložené v roku 1293 — čo je údaj o listine, nie o tom, odkedy tu žijú ľudia: archeológovia tu našli osídlenie už zo 6. a 7. storočia. Na mieste dnešného kaštieľa vtedy stálo opevnené sídlo obkolesené vodnou priekopou, obvyklá obrana zemepána v rovine: keď nemáte skalu, kopete. Rod, ktorý panstvo držal, sa volal podľa dediny a v štrnástom storočí získal komes Haslav právo ryžovať v miestnom potoku zlato. Neskoršieho pána si pamätáme ako Petra Ryžiara a vlastné dejiny panstva nezakrývajú, že pod ním a jeho synmi sa rod dal na zbojstvo — skončilo to súdmi, žalárom a popravami.
