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OPEN-AIR MUSEUM VYSOČINA
The idea to salvage folk architecture of a part of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands arose in the 1960’s. It has been developed and specified step by step until its recent form. The museum of folk architecture in Veselý Kopec, Betlém, the town conservation area in Hlinsko, and Svobodné Hamry, a forging iron mill, are also part of the Open-Air Museum Vysočina.
The museum of folk architecture in Veselý Kopec
Exhibits a sample of petty farmers’ mostly timbered homesteads, which were constructed in a part of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. Considerable attention is given to folk technical water-powered buildings. Expositions are dated from the second half of the 19th century until the 1950’s when the possibility of private husbandry was liquidated on account of social changes.Single houses show the construction particularity from the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands and the Iron Mountains. At the same time, the houses and their inside equipment document not only the development in a particular era, but also the family way of life and their social position in society.
Betlém – an urban conservation area of folk architecture
A collection of buildings in Hlinsko’s Betlém is a unique urban complex of a preserved, mainly timbered, development in the town centre. Its beginning goes back to the first half of the 18th century in connection with craft development and the possibility of migration after the Toleration Act of 1781.
There was an increasing demand for new houses. In the 1750’s, the Rychmburk’s authorities earmarked an area on the right bank of the Chrudimka River, which used to be municipal pastures at one time. In this area petty craftsman, especially potters and weavers, started building their dwellings. Thus, the part of the town called Betlém came into being. In 1731 there were only two cottages and one herd of cattle shepherded by local herdsmen there. About a hundred years later, this area was completely developed, and there were only narrow lanes among houses.
During the 20th century a dismal history of Betlém began to be written. From the 1960’s people changed their lifestyles. They started moving to more modern houses. One by one, the small homes in Betlém were left derelict. The houses remained empty, decayed and gradually disappeared. Although the workers of the Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments had been drawing attention to the problem for many years and lauding Betlém‘s great value, its salvage only began at the end of 1990’s.
At the beginning of 1989, appropriate institutions agreed on the salvage of the central part of Betlém, which was declared the conservation area in 1995. The National Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments took charge of the salvage by delegating responsibility for Betlém to the Open-Air Museum Vysočina.
Svobodné Hamry
The forging iron-mill, which was originally equipped with two water wheels for underground water, was renewed in 1980. One wheel drove the main shaft for hammer movement and the second one drove forge bellows and a grinding stone with a diameter of 90 cm.
A grinding room of the local mill, which burnt in 1928 and was gradually pulled down, was also renovated. Valuable documents about Czech traditional miller’s trade are located in the grinding room: soapstone – a grinder for groats production and device, called jahelka, for millet production from the panicgrass. The grinding room is completed by wooden posts, which were saved from other mills in the Vysočina Region.
