Zihle Chateau Audio guide

A chateau with a changing fate

The chateau in Zihle stands in a village in the Kralovice region of the Plzen North district. It was built at the end of the sixteenth century as the seat of a new estate, but its importance as a noble residence lasted only a short time. Already at the beginning of the seventeenth century it was sold and later attached to a larger estate, so it became more of an economic and operational base than a representative aristocratic residence.

The building is often described as a fortress, which reflects both its older defensive character and the form of the structure. Since 1964 it has been protected as a cultural monument.

Architecture and surviving form

The building has a rectangular ground plan and a single upper floor. The main facade has seven bays, and at its center is a rusticated portal with openings for the pulleys of a drawbridge. Behind the portal, a passage runs through the entire building, a feature that recalls an older fortified residence. The facades were originally decorated with sgraffito, a technique typical of Renaissance architecture in Bohemia.

During rebuilding around 1700, the first floor was significantly altered, while from the original structure mainly the outer walls remained. In the ground floor and by the staircase, parts with trough vaulting have survived.

Later development

After 1945 the building was used by a state farm, and repairs were carried out in 1970. After that, however, the structure was not maintained sufficiently and began to deteriorate. Water ingress damaged the roof truss and the structural stability of the outer masonry, which is a major problem for monuments of this kind. Today, Zihle stands as a valuable example of how smaller noble residences changed according to the needs of their owners, economic conditions, and the long term management of the landscape.