The Sights and Monuments of the town of Vamberk
The first written records about the town foundation originate in the second half of the 13th century, when the family Drslavice founded a small castle called Waldenberg in the colonization era in Přemysl Otakar´s II reign. It originated a natural market settlement and it gradually developed into a little town. The present trapezoid square was in the past bordered by 23 wooden houses of wealthy citizens with arcades and a wooden church in the head of the square. The last of these houses was pulled down in 1988. The first houses built in bricks started to be constructed in the first half of the 18th century. The little town, mainly its wooden houses were damaged by fire in 1841 and 1898. The last fire in 1898 damaged also the Baroque St. Prokop church built in 1712 - 1713, the chapel of „St. Jesus on the Cross“, standing next to it and barns. The church was repaired in the same but the chapel was not repaired ar all. The church is one of the town dominants. The present two-steeples church was built on the place of the original wooden one and its existence can be proved by the late gothic monstrance from the 15th century, by tombstones from the 16th and 17th centuries built in the walls of the present building and by tin baptismal font from 1691. On the main altar there is a picture of a saint man by J. Hellich from 1857. Under the church there is a crypt. Unfortunately, the mummies located in it were brought away and conserved in 1993 due to the bad climate. Nowadays the crypt is empty, some of the mummies are situated in the monastery in the town of Broumov. On the place of burnt out barns there was built the school consecrated on 28 September 1905.
The old building of the town and at the same time a significant sacral building is the cemetery chapel of Saint Barbora, built in early-gothic style. There is a cemetery around the chapel with the graves and tombs of significant Vamberk natives. The most significant is the pseudo-gothic tomb of the count Lützow, reconstructed in 1992. Among others there were buried here as follows: Josef Richard Vilímek, the founder of Prague publishing house, academic painter professor Otakar Sedloň or members of the famous marionette family Kopecký. We should mention the sacral buildings in the land of the town there are small chapels. The most valuable of them is the Baroque chapel of All Saints from the end of 17th century situated at the northern edge of the town.
The Jewish cemetery founded before 1673 proved in 1688 was extended in 1753, 1806 and 1820. The oldest legible tombstone is from 1700, the last funeral was held here in 1936. At the cemetery entrance there were kept the walls of the mortuary. 500 plaque tombstones of Baroque and classicist types with Hebrew, German and Czech notices. The character of some rococo and classicist plastic symbols commonly used on the Baroque town statues shows that the authors of some tombstones are the members of the significant family Mielnický. The cemetery belonged to the Jewish religious village of Doudleby nad Orlicí.
In the town there also technical monuments. The oldest of them is the old emperor road in the forest over Vamberk. The original reinforcement with sandstone blocks was kept in some parts of the road. The age of the road is proved by two sandstone conciliation crosses, probably from the 15 century, standing near by.
The third conciliation cross of the same age stands at the road in the town part in the western part of the town. To find another unique technical monument we have to go the nearby village with the poetic name Peklo (Hell). The Peklo wooden bridge with the roof over the river Zdobnice was built in 1840. In 1907 its replacement was prepared but it was only repaired in 1921. The last overhaul was done in 1982. The boards of the bridge cover are not put vertically but horizontally. This hanger bridge belongs to the oldest wooden bridges in this country. The technical value of the bridge is proved by the existence of the construction plan dated 1894 provided with a seal of the National exhibition of Czechoslovakia in Prague in 1895, located in the Museum of the Eagle Mountains in Rychnov nad Kněžnou. The bridge has also one sad story: the academic painter Antonín Slavíček was paralyzed when swimming under the bridge. The significant technical cultural monument is the three-arch stone bridge is called “Small Charles Bridge“ by local inhabitants and it is decorated with the plastic arts of the country patrons. The bridge was built in 1864 - 1865. Due to the heavy traffic the bridge was extended in 1930s. The plastic arts made by the sculptor Harnach from Vysoké Mýto represent the national saints: Prokop, Ludmila, Cyril, Metoděj, Jan Nepomucký, Václav, Vojtěch and the cross with Jesus. The beauty of the bridge is added by the weir under the bridge.
The most numerous group of monuments in the land of the town are the plastic arts made of stone. The oldest one is the Maria column in the square from 1699. In the 18th and 19th centuries there were several generations of the significant stone-sculptor family of Mielnický. The head representatives of the family located many Baroque and later on also Empire statues in the surroundings of Vamberk, mainly in the region near the Eagle Mountains. The oldest work of this kind is the early-gothic statue of St. Jan Nepomucký from 1735, standing in the Lützow square and the early-baroque statue of Madonna from 1741 at the nearby crossing of the streets Pekelská and Žižkova. Both statues were made by Jan Ignác Mielnický. He was probably the author of the statue from 1743 representing „Christ at the column“ in the fence of the wine bar called George. But the most significant statue is the sculptural group of St. Anna under the staircase of St. Prokop, made about 1777 by the sculptor František Antonín Mielnický (junior), the statue of Christ in prison by the same author - nowadays it is dismantled in the vicarage garden - and the rococo sculptural group of St. Anna at the south-west edge of the town from 1775. The sculptural groups connected with strong trees form lovely countryside dominants and they can be found in the shape of Virgin Maria from Vambeřice from 1774 over the town by the road to the Vyhlídka cottage or in Podřezov in the sculptural group of Virgin Maria. We can also mention the Empire statues called Crucifixion from 1801 standing in front of the apse of St. Prokop in the Hus square church and the statue of St. Prokop from 1807 standing at the old emperor road in the forests over the town. Both were made by a common, not known author from the Mielnický family. The God Calvary with a Maria relief from 1821 made by Josef Mielnický in Jůna street proves the continuation of Baroque forms in the folk sculpture until the first half or the 19th century.
In 1869 the fountain was built in the square centre, serving until 1908 as the reservoir of drinking water, brought here using the wooden water-pipeline from Podřezov. The fountain was built by the sculptor František Veith in new Renaissance style with the allegories showing jobs of the people living here (agriculture, trade, textile industry and spinning mills). It is used as the fountain until now.
On 3 July 1904 the statue of Master John Huss was revealed in the eastern part of the square, based on the design of the academic sculptors Jan Josef Kalvoda and František Koukol from Ústí nad Orlicí. This statue is probably the second oldest standing plastic art of Master John in the territory of this country. A secession statue, this time by the academic sculptor František Bílek, can be found in Janáčkova street No. 587 and it represents „Saving“.
In the western part of the square between the church and the school there was built a monument by the sculptor František Rous to remember the people killed in the World War I. The figure part of the monument shows a widow with a baby. In the mother´s lap there is a soldier helmet with lime-tree leaves. On the plinth walls there hang wrought plaques made from the noble metal containing 101 killed people in the World War I.
In the end the significant monuments of the wealthy people character. The oldest house in the square is the classicist stone one No. 98 dated from 1798.
Among others there are the lace museum dated from 1916 designed by the architect Oldřich Liska, the classicist Town Hall dated from 1881, the building of the Czech Saving Bank, vicarage, library and others. We should not omit the factory owners´ villas from the 1st quarter of the 20th century, such as secession Zeman´s villa No. 115 over the stone bridge, Kubias´ villa No. 25 used as the Lace School now, and the factory owner Suchánek´s villa, the former House for children and youth.
