Hlinsko plans to renovate the Baroque chateau and establish a toy museum

Hlinsko – The town of Hlinsko in the Chrudim region will complete this year a project for the restoration of the Baroque chateau in Chlum, which is its local part. It intends to establish a toy museum or a community hall there. Miroslav Krčil, the mayor, informed ČTK.

"By the end of the year, we will have a project on the table. We want to use the former chateau for multiple purposes. The monument is in a dilapidated state, and we are facing the question of what to do with it," said the mayor.

The architects have been tasked with what the town wants to have there. The town does not wish for the monument to become a ruin and wants to use it meaningfully. Part of the monument will serve for a toy collection. The town hall purchased a collection of 5,000 wooden toys from František Kyncl from Slaný in 2014, who had been collecting Czech and foreign toys for 50 years.

In addition to the museum, there should be spaces for community facilities, such as services like hairdressing or medical offices. The community hall is expected to accommodate approximately 60 to 70 people.

The Baroque episcopal chateau dates back to the 18th century, commissioned between 1733 and 1753 by Bishop Jan Josef Vratislav of Mitrovic, and it served as a residence for bishops. The costs for the restoration of the monument are hard to estimate in advance, roughly between 30 to 40 million crowns, said the mayor.

"But it is really a very rough estimate. Our costs are in the low tens of millions of crowns. We would like to look for external funding. We do not plan to carry out this next year. Rather, sometime in the second half of 2025 and the first half of 2026," said Krčil.