Šilboch Castle

Šilboch was a small castle in Prague's Libeň that no longer stands today. It rose on the site of an older homestead at the corner of today's Na Vartě and Na Stráži streets, to the southeast of the Vychovatelna intersection. People also called it Čertova skála, Na stráži, or Ztracená varta.

On the border of Střížkov with Libeň, a high rocky outcrop rose with a homestead called Čertův vršek. According to legend, a castle lord once made a pact with the devil and ended up in hell. It was on this rocky outcrop that František Ferdinand Hilbert had a small castle built in the mid-eighteenth century. It was a single-story structure with a square floor plan. On each side, it had three windows both on the ground floor and on the upper story. It had a steep roof with a small tower on the northeast and a terrace on the southwest side.

One more legend is connected with this place. In seventeen fifty-seven, the Prussians invaded Prague and built a guard post here in Libeň, a sentry watch. After the lost battle at Kolín on June eighteenth of that year, they quickly withdrew and left one soldier behind. A local girl supposedly took him in and married him. The place then came to be called Na ztracené vartě and Na stráži. From the German word Schildwache, which means guard, the name Šilboch arose through corruption. The legend probably came about because of a tin statue of a Prussian soldier in full armor that stood in front of the castle. After the building was destroyed, it ended up in the city museum.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the castle belonged to Jan Karel Liebich, the superintendent and director of the Stavovské divadlo. He held magnificent parties there for leading nobility, wealthy citizens, artists, and scholars. During his stay in Prague, the composer Carl Maria von Weber also came here. For the carnival at Šilboch in February eighteen sixteen, he wrote a waltz. On Christmas Eve of eighteen twelve, Liebich prepared a surprise for his guests, a decorated little fir tree. He had brought the custom of decorating trees at Christmas from his native Germany. In Bohemia, this tradition took hold a few years later.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the castle was converted into an inn called Na stráži. In eighteen ninety-six, Julie and Albert Weiss are registered as owners. Four years later, the buildings and the rocky outcrop were demolished.

Local place names still recall the castle and its legends today: Čertův Vršek street, Na Vartě, Na Stráži, and Pod Čertovou skalou, and náměstí Na stráži.