Working Holidays for 2017

The Friends are organising three working holidays in 2017:

Saturday 3rd to Saturday 10th June 2017.

The Seventh Year of Restoration at Červený Dvůr, an estate that was once the summer residence of the Schwarzenberg family and is now a sanatorium. Participants will work on the restoration of an 18th-century gardener’s cottage on the estate and help to recreate the formal gardens of the château. Image by D. Chick.

Meeting point: participants can be met at Linz airport off the Ryanair flight from Stansted, or in Český Krumlov.

Accommodation: twin bedrooms in the stable wing of the château. Full bedding and towels provided.

Cost, excluding travel to Linz: £95 for seven nights from Saturday to Saturday, including all meals taken in the sanatorium dining room.

Saturday 8th to Saturday 15th July 2017.

Upgrading works in the gardens and maintenance work to the Stiassni Villa, an example of Functionalism, situated in Brno, the attractive city in Moravia in the Czech Republic. Designed for the wealthy textile industrialist Alfred Stiassny by the architect Ernst Wiesner in 1927, this large villa sits in a garden on an extensive, sloping plot of land. Image by Židlický.

Meeting point: Participants can be met at Brno airport off the Ryanair flight from Stansted or make their own way to the villa.

Accommodation: twin bedded ensuite rooms in a dormitory at Masaryk University which is close by. There are also shared kitchen facilities.The cost includes breakfast in the dormitory, lunch at the villa and dinner in a restaurant nearby.

Cost, excluding travel to Brno: £175 max. including all meals.

Friday 8th to Friday 15th September 2017.

Restoration of the renowned landscape garden at Krásný Dvůr, which was founded in 1783–1793 by a Czech aristocrat influenced partly by his botanic inclinations and also by his journey around Western Europe, where he saw the new landscape style from England. Participants will work on some of the monuments on the site. Image by Milan Svoboda.

Meeting point: Participants will be picked up at Prague Airport and will travel by minibus to Krásný Dvůr.

Accommodation: At a local pension in twin-bedded ensuite rooms. Breakfast and dinner are taken at the pension and lunch at the château.

Cost, excluding travel to Prague: £175 approximately for accommodation and all meals.

For details or to book a place, apply to Peter Jamieson at or at

Maximum number of participants per holiday: 8

Age: 20+

Insurance: this is provided for the work on each site. Participants should have travel insurance and an EU medical card.