Jílové Chateau

On the site of an older stronghold from 1370, Henry of Bünau had a water castle built, and in 1574, architect Valentin Preisler rebuilt it into a Renaissance chateau, two stories higher. After the Battle of White Mountain, the Bünau family lost their property, and the chateau was bought by Christoph Simon Thun, whose descendant, Franz Sigmund Thun-Hohenstein, gave it a form close to its present appearance at the end of the seventeenth century. In 1842, Josef Münzberg leased the unused building and established a woolen and textile factory here; a park with a pond and gardens was also added to the chateau at that time. The Thun family returned to the chateau as their main residence in 1932, but already in 1945, the building was severely damaged by bombing, and after the war, the state confiscated it as German property. Extensive reconstruction since the early nineteen twenties has restored the ground floor, the first floor, the cellars, and the park; today, the chateau is owned by the town and serves as a cultural center with exhibitions on local history, fluorite mining, and the Bünau family, complemented by the chateau library. Visitors here will find Renaissance architecture with traces of the turbulent twentieth century.