Bernartice Chateau

Bernartice is a protected cultural monument in the Pilsen region, located in almost half a millennium of the same location as the head of the small estate centre. Although the monumental form faced many changes, its buildings did not disappear - they are a testament to the fate of several powerful noble families and their property.

The first written mention of the Bernartic fortress dates back to 1413, when it appeared in the inventory of the property of the deceased John of Bernartic. It was inherited by various nobles - first Beneda z Volfštejna and Martin z Ostroměře, then Martin's son John. Since 1459, the fortress belonged to the Knights' House Purkartů z Hořešovic, which apparently also brought an initiative to build a late Gothic fortress, which can still be traced to parts of the original masonry today.

The fate of the fortress broke at the beginning of the Renaissance age. Merklínští z Merklína, which acquired the manor around 1553 or 1544, rebuilt it in accordance with the period taste. The last of them was Purkart Merklín, who died in 1626 and left behind an indebted farm. He soon after his death took Kocové z Dobrše, and although the fort was to be mentioned once more in the historical records - in 1639 when Divish Koc bought it - it was supposed to be the last moment of her fame as the control center of the estate.

After Koc the owners of the village quickly took turns and the fort gradually lost its original function. The ultimate transformation came in 1732 when Löwensteinové bought the village and joined it to its Boran estate. From that moment on, the fort was no longer a seat of the manor, but its buildings turned into accommodation for the administrator of the adjoining court and granary for the storage of grain. Only in the twentieth century - more precisely from its second half - part of the building began to be used as a private holiday home.

A fortress from the Gothic palace is built with a wall whose original wall is preserved in the southwest wing. During the Renaissance adjustments, three more wings were added around the courtyard with subtile polygonal towers in the corners. Dendrochronological dating of the ceilings on the ground floor of the south wing revealed that the trees were cut down to build them between 1584 and 1587. The masonry covered a simple block of sgraffiti, and the entire complex surrounded an arched moat, visible until the end of the eighteenth century.

A description of the fortress from the end of the 16th or the beginning of the seventeenth century was captured by a painter in a painting which was later preserved in a mountain chateau. It depicts a three-wing building with a bastion and a wall with key shooting points. Despite changes in the interior, which does not carry any significant architectural details, Bernartice retains importance as one of the significant Renaissance buildings of the southwest Bohemia.