Historical sights
Libštát - St. George's church
The architectonically in no way exceptional church of St. George has been for more than two centuries the dominant of Libštát. It was built in the years 1787–1789 on a mildly sloping promontory in the place of original, partly woody shrine. The building stone was reddish-brown arkose sandstone to siltstone, quarried in the immediate surroundings. The local arkose sandstones are characterized by scarcity of fossils. Their content of quartz grains varies around 60 %, and roughly 25 % are unstable constituents, prevalently feldpsars and a smaller portion of clay minerals. Iron oxides cause the coloration. The sandstone was quarried mainly in the Permian of the Krkonoše foothill. In Libštát, to this day is apparent usage of this sandstone, mainly in 19th century in houses, walls, stairways or bridges, including those of the „South-north German“ railway. Dimensions of the church result in a rough volume of stone for the mantle of tower 640 m3, for the nave 468 m3, for presbytery 260 m3, for sacristy 40 m3 and for spindle stairway 13 m3, in total 1 421 m3 of stone, which corresponds to ca. 3.000 tons of sandstone. Another stairway and pavement (ca. 300 m2) mean additional 48 tons. Nobility should have supplied 20 thousand bricks for the construction, the true amount was yet by a fifth higher, which means the mass of bricks was roughly 95 tons. Of course the constructions didn´t get by without wood, part of which was afforded by the nobility office from own resources, and also the Libštát parish had forests at disposal. Lime was imported chiefly from Syřenov (ca. 12 km apart). Major part of the way to Libštát follows watercourse and thus is a relatively plausible for goods transport. The majority of workers originated from Libštát and its parish-office district, specialized craftsmen mainly from the aristocratic Jičín. A noteworthy fact is that also non-Catholics worked at the construction. The St. George's church was ceremonially consecrated on Sunday, October 4th 1789.
Photo from 19th century
Photo from the early 20th century
Contact
Geopark UNESCO Český ráj
Jiří Vlasák
e-mail:vlasak@geopark-ceskyraj.cz
http://www.geopark-ceskyraj.cz
