Štiřín Castle, Baroque castle in Štiřín, Czech Republic

Štiřín Castle is a one-storey baroque building with three wings, built in 1750 in the village of Kamenice, about 10 km southeast of Prague. Its ochre and pale orange facade has a central projecting section with an arched entrance, a balcony above, columns and a triangular pediment topped by a small spire. Evenly spaced rectangular windows with white frames and stone bands line the wings, and a gravel courtyard with large round planters leads to the building.

A medieval fortress from the 15th century stood on this site; Emperor Maximilian II spent a night there in 1562. The fortress was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War, leaving only three small rooms, and the present three-wing baroque form dates from a rebuilding in 1750. Prince Rohan bought the castle in 1822, the Nostic-Rieneck family made further changes between 1831 and 1870, and from 1870 it belonged to František Ringhoffer's descendants until 1945.

The park holds sculptures attributed to Matthias B. Braun, including a statue of St. Jan Nepomucký dated 1764. These works are still part of the garden today and can be spotted while walking through the grounds.

The castle is in Štiřín and can be reached from Prague by car or public transport without difficulty. Since parts of the grounds are used for private events, it is worth checking in advance which areas are open to visitors at any given time.

Between 1945 and 1947 Štiřín was one of four castles (with Kamenice, Lojovice and Olešovice) used by Přemysl Pitter's "Castle Action", which rescued children of all nationalities and faiths from German concentration camps and postwar internment camps. In 1946 the castle and its grounds passed to the Junák scout movement as compensation for property seized by the Nazis; the scouts lost it again after February 1948 and failed to recover it after 1989.