Broumov

The historical heart of this town (listed as an urban conservation zone) still retains its Silesian-type layout. This type of plan is characterised by a pair of main streets running the entire length of the built-up area, bordering the large marketplace on two sides and converging at two opposite gates. The final appearance of the town houses on Broumov square is derived from the Empire and Historicist styles of the century. Many of the houses are built on mediaeval foundations, and the vaults and stone portals have been preserved on the ground floors of some of them. The seats in the at the sides of the entrances to the houses are typical features of both town and village architecture.

The Benedictine monastery is one of the Czech Republic’s national cultural monuments. The abbey is an impressive complex whose present appearance is the result of reconstruction work in the Baroque style, following plans by K. I. Dientzenhofer (1726–48). St. Wenceslas’ Monastery with the Church of Saint Adalbert stands in the northeastern part of the town, on the highest point of the rock promontory. Connected to the main monastery building is the former monastery grammar school (from 1711) with the adjacent outbuildings on the northern side of the bridge (1705) leading across the former ditch into the monastery garden.

The first written record of the cemetery Church of the Virgin Mary dates to 1383, and also mentions the main altar consecrated to the Virgin Mary. The church and the cemetery were probably founded in the second half of the 13th or in the early 14th century.  We know nothing about how the church originally looked, apart from perhaps that it was built of wood. It was burned down while the town was under siege by the Hussite forces of the Hradec region, led by Čeněk of Wartenberk and Hynek Krušina of Lichtenburk between 17th and 20th June 1421.

Broumov