Kostel svatého Gotharda (Potěhy) Church

The Church of Saint Gothard stands in Potěhy near Čáslavi. The village is first mentioned in twelve forty-two in a document issued by King Václav the First, and it was already a parish at that time. The first record of the early Gothic church dates from twelve sixty-eight. It had a presbytery oriented approximately towards the east, vaulted with a cross vault with stone ribs, and a nave that was ten point six metres long. From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, the building remained unchanged. In the sixteenth century, priests of the utraquist faith served here.

At the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century, a sacristy was added on the northern side, built from the start as a gallery. The small portal leading into it with a Renaissance cornice is the oldest preserved detail of the church. In sixteen twenty-seven, the village was purchased by Marie Magdalena Trčková, born Lobkovicová. In sixteen thirty-six, the Trčka family's property was confiscated and the emperor gave it to the generalissimo Ernst de Suis. He began to restore the church, which was likely abandoned during the war. Between sixteen forty-two and sixteen fifty-nine, an early Baroque reconstruction took place. The side walls of the nave were torn down and a wider nave with a new presbytery was created. The gallery is supported by a stone arcade on three massive pillars. The old presbytery became the Chapel of the Virgin Mary, and a tower grew over the sacristy. Filled-in loopholes in the tower show that the church could be fortified. The completion of the reconstruction was commemorated by a bell from sixteen fifty-nine.

In eighteen oh-seven, the village burned down along with the church. It was restored the very next year and the construction plans were preserved. A second bell bore the date eighteen oh-seven. A new two-storey sacristy with an oratory on the upper floor was built on the east side of the presbytery. In eighteen seventy-three, the architect František Schoranz renovated the church. The windows received broken vaults and neo-Gothic surrounds. Interestingly, some windows extend across the vaults and ceilings. External buttresses were added around the building and the roof above the presbytery was changed from a gabled roof to a sloping roof. Repairs in nineteen twelve and nineteen thirteen were merely for maintenance purposes. At the end of the twentieth century, the interior was repainted.

The church occupies the southern part of the village square, and opposite it stands the rectory. The three-sided presbytery has a fan vault on ribs springing from consoles, the nave has a flat ceiling, and the gallery is barrel-vaulted. The tracery of the windows consists of nuns, flamelets, trefoils, and in the nave also radiating rosettes. The roof of the tower is formed by four gables. The northern and southern ones have clocks, the eastern one supports the bells, and the western one has an opening in the shape of a cross. In the middle of the gabled wall of the façade is a recessed portal with a tympanum.