Kopaniny Castle

The history of the manor seat in Kopaniny near Aš reaches deep into the past, when the influential Zedtwitz family founded the original castle here, first documented in writing in 1537. This noble family, which controlled vast territories in the Aš Promontory, had its seat significantly expanded in 1678, while the original heraldic stone was later transferred to their other property in Doubrava. The last owners were Franz Josef Zedtwitz, an imperial and royal colonel and participant in the First World War, who lived from 1873 to 1954, and his son Franz Xaver, a natural scientist, writer and journalist, who fell near Sevastopol in 1942. After expropriation in 1945, the complex was entrusted to a state farm, under whose administration it turned into ruins. Since 2010, the castle torso has been protected as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic, and in 2013, reconstruction of its surviving part began. Expert surveys have furthermore revealed that the structure still carries valuable architectural elements of late Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Classicism to this day.