The ruins of a massive three-storey fortress on an insignificant hill above the stream valley, dominating today the small village of the same name in the Kolín region. It was probably built at the end of the 14th century and rebuilt around the middle of the 15th century with a polygonal bastion. A Renaissance stone bridge over a deep fortified (originally water) moat has been preserved. In the course of time the fortress changed hands repeatedly and was often referred to as a castle, but gradually its importance declined. In the 19th century the entrance gate was demolished and the whole area was radically rebuilt.
The fortress was in private ownership until 1950, after which the local agricultural cooperative used the area. In 1955 the tower was damaged by a storm (according to other sources, a lightning strike) and since then it has fallen into disrepair; in the mid-1970s the damaged mansard roof collapsed. After 1989 the fortress was returned to its original owners.
In 2012, the building was bought from private ownership by the Central Bohemia Region and handed over to the Regional Museum in Kolín. In 2015, work was started to save the monument - the tower was statically secured and the roof covered with shingles was reconstructed according to the planning and photographic documentation. After the reconstruction, depositories and an exhibition presenting the life of landowning families in the Kolín region will be set up in the fortress area, and an exhibition on the lifestyle of the minor nobility in the Middle Ages and early modern period will be set up in the fortress building itself.
The fortress is now in a very bad condition, it is undergoing a complete renovation.
The painting is located on a website (
visit link) . The website is dedicated to castles and their remains mainly in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. The catalogue (which is being gradually updated) so far includes 2080 visited castles, fortresses and ruins in the Czech Republic, another 200 sites from Slovakia, 170 from Austria, Switzerland and Italy and 65 from other European countries are represented only in the photo gallery.
The author this painting is a German-speaking Czech painter, decorator and architect Bedrich Wachsmann (
visit link) (May 24, 1820 – February 27, 1897). |He painted watercolors and oil paintings, ornaments and drew designs for monuments. He was responsible for the reconstruction of the Cross Chapel at Prague Castle, internal changes in the Romanesque style (1868–69), renovation of the chapel at Archbishop's residence in Prague.