Hrad Brumov
Castle · Czechia
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Castle ruins above Brumov-Bylnice, founded in the early 13th century as a fortress controlling the Vlárský pass route to Hungary. Protected as a cultural monument since 1964.
The castle's first burgrave, Svěslav, appears in a document from 1224, soon after Olomouc bishop Bruno of Schaumburk built it as an episcopal stronghold on the border with Hungary. It remained the seat of the manor until the mid-14th century, then passed through a string of owners who pledged and re-pledged it for two centuries. The lords of Lomnice bought it in the early 16th century and rebuilt it into their main Moravian seat. In the autumn of 1621, rebelling subjects backed by Bethlen Gábor's Hungarian troops stormed and plundered the castle. A fire in 1760 destroyed the building along with the manorial archive, and a second fire in 1820 finished the job: by 1827 it stood abandoned.
What you see
Curtain walls and two prismatic towers, one converted into a lookout, rise over the courtyard and the perimeter walls of the former manor buildings.
Practical
Restored between 1970 and 2000, when the ruins reopened to the public; the surviving cellar and ground-floor rooms house an exhibition on the castle's history and the White Carpathians Protected Landscape Area.
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