The brewery in Vysoké Mýto will not be a cultural monument

Vysoké Mýto (Orlickoústecko) - The old brewery in Vysoké Mýto will not be a cultural monument. The Ministry of Culture rejected the request for its inclusion on the list, informed CTK spokesperson Jan Cieslar. Currently, there is almost nothing left to protect, as most of the buildings have been demolished. Supporters of preserving the site are disappointed; according to Jitka Loskotová from the Kujebák association, which repeatedly proposed the brewery as a cultural monument and demonstrated against its demolition, the ministry underestimated the value of the site.
    "The motion to declare the brewery a cultural monument has been shelved, as no reasons for reopening the proceedings were found," stated Cieslar.
    Activists argued that the brewery is an example of 19th-century industrial architecture and should be preserved. The site dates from 1898 to 1900. Before World War I, it brewed around 20,000 hectoliters of beer annually. During the war, due to a shortage of raw materials, production fell to 1,000 hectoliters. In 1951, production - by then of spirits - ended in Mýto. Later, the buildings were used as warehouses by an agricultural company that ultimately went bankrupt. It was eventually purchased by a private company, which is gradually building residential buildings in the area. Only the main building with the brewery tower and chimney should remain standing from the original brewery. However, the association fears that even that may eventually fall, as converting it into apartments would not be profitable.
    "Other buildings have already been demolished. The ministry, during a local inspection at the end of 2008, stated that no original elements were preserved and the structures are in poor condition, while at that time there was still one family living there, and inside there were, for example, old cast-iron railings and windows," said Loskotová. According to her, the buildings should have been bought by the city, but the city council claimed it did not have the funds for such investments. The association for the preservation of the brewery collected around 2,000 signatures for a petition.
    Heritage protection or attempts to achieve it previously saved, for example, the former high school in the center of Pardubice in the Pardubice region. To prevent its demolition, another association also succeeded in having the train station in Ústí nad Orlicí declared a cultural monument.