For sale a unique castle in Vršovice, Louny District

About real estate

We are offering a unique castle complex for sale in Vršovice with a total area of 1.6 hectares. The Vršovice Castle, along with its farm buildings, is located in the southern part of the village of Vršovice (Louny District), in a picturesque bend of the Ohře River. Built in the first half of the 17th century, the castle is a listed cultural monument. The total land area, including greenery and built-up areas, is 15,805 m². The castle’s floor space is approximately 2,600 m², and the adjacent farm buildings offer about 2,500 m².

Historical records first mention a fortress on the site of the current castle in 1419. It originally stood on an island surrounded by branches of the Ohře River, which served as part of its fortification. One of these riverbeds still exists to the east of the castle.

Vršovice Castle was constructed in the 1620s, rebuilt and renovated in 1735–1736, and repaired again in 1871. The castle has a four-winged layout surrounding a central square courtyard. Above the main gate, dating from the early 17th century, there is a carved alliance coat of arms of Volf Ilburk of Vřesovice and his wife Eliška Berková of Dubá, along with the date 1628 (the year of the castle’s completion). Above it was painted the Schwarzenberg coat of arms. The entrance was topped with a turret featuring a Baroque onion dome. The stepped gables with curvilinear contours at both corners of the front façade also reference this era and still exhibit late Renaissance elements.

The castle was built with great care, primarily using blocks of marlstone and, in part, quarry stone. The arcades and vaults of the northern and western wings (now partially ruined) were added during the Baroque renovation and built from brick.

The castle’s entrance passage and the rooms on the ground floor of the northern wing are vaulted with barrel vaults. In the small rooms to the right of the entrance, there used to be a gatehouse and a prison cell. According to a 1663 description, the ground floor originally contained eight rooms, including a uniquely preserved black kitchen. In the basement, there were three vaulted cellars. A sub-ground ice room, used for storing ice year-round to preserve food, is still accessible today.

The upper floor included a hallway, a chamber, a closet, a room with an adjacent closet, a cabinet, a large dining room, and the Chapel of the Holy Cross, which protrudes from the façade. Stucco ceilings were adorned with fresco paintings. Behind the dining room were several unfinished and unfurnished rooms. Under the shingle roof, there were nine rooms for servants.

In 1735–1736, owner Ludwig Georg of Baden had the castle completed, divided the old palace, furnished all 22 rooms with new furniture, and carried out overall repairs.

Many architectural features have been preserved in the building, such as early Baroque doors, wooden ceilings, floors, staircases, half-timbered walls, profiled wooden window and door frames, and both interior and exterior plasterwork, including fragments of stucco decoration on the upper floor.

The courtyard, once accessed through a now-nonexistent gate, is lined with farm buildings. The large building with Baroque gables on the left side of the entrance has undergone partial reconstruction. On the opposite side, the granary is built mainly from quarry marlstone and bricks. The windows have profiled wooden frames, and the interior is divided by vaulted arches on the ground floor and masonry pillars on the upper floors.

The current castle had a predecessor in a fortress first documented in 1419. A significant transformation occurred in 1622 when Volf Ilburk of Vřesovice purchased the estate and rebuilt the Vršovice fortress into a castle. He had his alliance coat of arms placed above the main portal, as mentioned earlier. Since then, several owners have held Vršovice, including the Lobkowicz and Czernin-Baden families.

By the end of the 18th century, the castle no longer served as a residential seat. Both the Baden family and later the Schwarzenbergs primarily used the estate for pheasant hunting and the surrounding lands as game preserves. The Schwarzenberg family owned the castle until 1924, when it was transformed into a residual estate under the land reform program. After 1945, the castle became the property of the Local National Committee in Vršovice, which converted it into residential housing and used the grounds for agricultural purposes. By the late 1980s, the castle was largely abandoned and had few tenants. Since 1989, the castle has been in private ownership.