Nove Mesto nad Metuji

Nove Mesto was laid out in 1501 on a rock spur inside a tight loop of the Metuje, so the old town is a compact grid with the river on three sides and steep drops below the walls. The square is a complete Renaissance ensemble of arcaded houses with gables and sgraffito, rebuilt after a fire in 1526 and hardly altered since. The chateau at the end of the spur was remodelled between 1908 and 1913 for the industrialist Josef Barton by Dusan Jurkovic and Pavel Janak, and this is the interesting layer: Jurkovic designed the terraced garden with a covered bridge, pergolas, a lookout and furniture in his folk-influenced modern manner, and Janak added Cubist elements, so an early sixteenth-century town carries some of the best Czech architecture of the 1910s at one end of it. The valley below is walked.

History

The oldest part of the town is Krčín, where a Slavic settlement existed in the 7th and 8th centuries and a village was probably founded in the 13th. Nové Město nad Metují itself was founded by Jan Černčický of Kácov on 10 August 1501 and gutted by fire in 1526. The Pernštejn family acquired the estate in 1527, and between 1527 and 1548 most of the houses on the square were rebuilt in a uniform Renaissance and late Gothic design on the original plan, their connected "swallow-tail" gables giving the town the look of the northern Italian Renaissance, while the castle was rebuilt too. The Stubenberks, owners from 1548 to 1621, enlarged the castle; Albrecht von Wallenstein bought the town in 1623, it passed to the Trčkas of Lípa, and after 1634 the estate was given to Walter Leslie, who rebuilt the castle in Baroque style. The Leslies held it until 1802, when the last of the family died, and the Dietrichsteins until 1858; after 1848 the town became independent of the nobility (Wikipedia, Nové Město nad Metují).

What to look for

• A Renaissance square - arcaded gabled houses on the spur, little altered since 1526.
• A river loop below - the Metuje on three sides with steep drops.
• Jurkovic's terraced garden - covered bridge, pergolas and furniture of 1908-1913.
• Janak's Cubist additions - early Czech Cubism in the chateau remodelling.

When to go

May to September. A day.

What to expect

Chateau and garden are guided and seasonal, with separate routes. Closed Mondays. The old town is small - a couple of hours. Parking on the spur is very limited.

Nearby

Nachod is ten kilometres north; Ratiborice is north-west.

Key facts