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The Friends were entertained on Thursday evening 26th October at the Embassy of Slovakia by Christine Sitwell, who gave a very interesting talk about the the relationship between the National Trust and the National Heritage Institute of the Czech Republic. Since the Velvet Revolution the two organisations have exchanged delegations, which has helpe...
The Friends of Czech Heritage again led volunteering to restore the park at the Château of Krásný Dvůr in North Bohemia. This is the second year the Friends have organised a week-long working party in this historic park, finishing on Friday 15th September. This year the group worked on uncovering the water supply to the Chinese pavilion, ...
The Friends' second working holiday of 2017 took place last week and was based in the Villa Stiassni, an example of Functionalism, 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 sloped plot of land. It has beautiful views across the garden to t...
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC FOR THE FIRST TIME Following The Friends' working party in June last year, we were pleased to receive summertime photographs of the Lower Cemetery at Žďár nad Sázavou from Zbyněk Vintr, who managed the project there. The enclosure, designed built by the famous Baroque architect J. B. Santini-Aichel, was in fact never used for bur...
Thursday 26th October 2017 at 6.30p in the Embassy of Slovakia, 25 Kensington Palace Gardens, London W8 4QY. Christine Sitwell talks about the programme between the National Trust and the NPÚ (the Czech National Heritage Institute) whose aims include exchanging examples of good practice, sharing experiences, broadening staff horizons, gaining objec...
June 2017 - Two parties of volunteers from the UK have been completing the work on the ‘Beaver Cellar’ which is associated with the ‘Mauricovna’ or watchman’s cottage, seen in the distance. Both are important features in the English landscape park at Červeny Dvůr in Southern Bohemia. These were the final working parties before the restoration is co...
Wednesday 21st June This visit to the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich will include a unique opportunity to have close-up view of the meticulous cleaning and repair work that is taking place on the ceiling of the Painted Hall. This will be described by Will Palin, Conservation Director, and Stephen Paine of Paine & Stewart Conservation...
EGYPT AND CZECH EGYPTOLOGISTS: THE IMPORTANT BUT LITTLE-KNOWN CONTRIBUTION MADE BY CZECH ARCHAEOLOGISTS On 5th April 2017 Suzanna Bojtos of Birkbeck College gave a fascinating talk, illustrated by excellent slides, on the contribution made by several Czech scholars to the excavation, preservation and interpretation of ancient Egyptian temples, tomb...
The Friends presented a lecture MARTINŮ IN HIS TIME – THE RECORDED LEGACY on 7th March in the Embassy of Slovakia, London, given by Patrick Lambert, a musicologist with a particular interest in the life and works of the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959), generally considered to be the fourth most important Czech composer after Smetana, Dv...
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 ...
