The criminals who built Frydberk castle terrorised the Bohemian countryside in mediaeval times. Conquered, plundered, turned into a brewery and then the Church built a place of worship out of its tower. This is the castle’s amazing story.

History

The Wüstehub family built the original castle in or around 1290^{1 2}. It’s first mention is in documents belonging to the Bishopric of Wrocław in the early 14th century³. Wrocław is in modern-day Poland, but in those days the bishop ruled lands up to the eastern part of modern Czechia.

The castle^{1 2 3} is on the border of what was the Silesian estates of the Wrocław bishops, and Moravia². The Wüstehub were local nobles who didn’t appreciate the Church taking over large swathes of land in the region². They used the castle as a robbers’ nest², launching attacks on the Bishops’ lands.

Their choice of anti-church tactics may be questionable, but they lost a lot so the Church must have expected this reaction.

In 1358 the Bishop of Wrocław bought the castle and land^{2 3} at an extortionate price. He did this to deny the thieves their lair². Successive bishops took care of the place to try to keep the peace⁴. In 1582 one of the Bishops had the castle restored in a Renaissance style². He added a plaque and a clock to the tower to commemorate this, which is still there today.

A hundred years’ later, the Thirty Years’ war was harsh in this part of Moravia.

I wrote a longer article about the details of the Thirty Years’ war which started in Bohemia.

In 1639 Swedish and Polish troops attacked and occupied the castle ^{2 4}. They soon retreated but blew the castle up first^{2 3}. They left nothing from the original castle except the burnt hollowed-out tower². No one wanted to restore or rebuild it afterwards³.

Conversion

Local administrators wondered if the place could be re-used as a prison but nothing ever came of this. People lived in some of the remains until 1703 when an entrepreneur used the tower as a brewery^{2 3 4}. It was soon abandoned again and nature took over.

Trees started to grow in the ruins and it became a familiar sight in the region. Locals were proud of it and identified with the ruins. So much so that when the village became a town, they put a castle with a tree growing out of it on their town seal².

In 1805 the Bishop donated the castle grounds and the tower to the locality to help them build a new parish church⁴ . The Church kept the tower and added a narrow nave¹ and transepts behind it.  The tower dwarfs the rest of the building and gives the impression it still is a lookout post of sorts.

The coarse un-plastered walls made me think ‘castle’ rather than ‘church’. Walking along the narrow headland gave me the impression it was larger than it is. You have to stretch and crane your neck to take it all in when you stand in the shadow of the tower.

The Church consecrated the new building in 1810². The current grass-covered church grounds contain a cemetery. The perimeter of the cemetery marks the location of the old castle walls³. You can see some of the original castle foundations if you keep your eyes peeled³.

Architecture

The castle had an oval layout with a cylindrical tower with an 11-metre diameter^{2 4}. Judging by the available land on the hill the castle wasn’t large; even allowing for subsidence the total surface area available is small. I suspect this was a defensive building rather than a main home.

Soon after building the church, the parish realised the need for a permanent bridge over what used to be a 30-metre wide moat². In 1846 they added a stone bridge to allow easy access to the building^{1 2}. This bridge is still there today.

In the 1860s they covered up the underground corridors of the castle². I could find no other information about these underground corridors except this source. I am curious to know if they are available or not because I’d love to see them.

The site – church, tower and bridge – is a national Czech monument¹.

Please share this with people who like unusual architecture!

References

1. Church of St Joseph with bridge; National Heritage Institute; (Retrieved 2019-10-11) [↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
2. Castle Žulová; Hrady.CZ; 2007-11-02 (Article in CZ) [↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
3. State archeological survey; National Heritage Institute; (Retrieved 2019-10-11) [↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
4. Žulová (Frydberk); Dejiny.CZ; 2001-04-14[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]

Remember: links were correct at time of publication.