Church of Saint Michael, church in Horní Dvořiště

The Church of Saint Michael in Horní Dvořiště is a single-nave church with a five-sided presbytery supported by buttresses and a prismatic tower in the northwest corner of the nave. The presbytery has pointed windows with stone tracery and a net vault of star pattern; the nave, originally flat-ceilinged, keeps two tracery windows on its south side. A rectangular sacristy with cross vaulting adjoins the north side of the presbytery.

The church is documented in writing as early as 1252, built in the early Gothic style, and was originally a branch church of Saint Nicholas in Rožmberk nad Vltavou. It was recorded as a parish church from 1384. Between 1511 and 1517 it was fundamentally rebuilt and enlarged in the late Gothic style, probably by the Rožmberk building workshop. After a fire in 1738 the nave was newly vaulted in Baroque manner, while the presbytery vault stayed Gothic.

The village grew at a crossroads of routes from Freistadt, Dolní Dvořiště, Vyšší Brod and Leonfelden, and the church was built on a new branch of the provincial path leading to Rožmberk Castle. Its tower rises in the northwest corner of the nave, and from the southeast it shapes the village skyline seen on approach.

The church is located near the center of Horní Dvořiště on land that once held a cemetery, making it easy to find when walking through town. A cemetery and wall still surround the grounds, and visitors should dress respectfully and speak quietly when entering this active place of worship.

The oldest part is the sacristy, added in the second half of the 14th century to an older, probably early Gothic church; its northeast corner still juts into the western wall of the nave. The late Gothic presbytery, begun after 1511, is visibly shifted south against the nave axis, and its construction started from the sacristy's southeast corner. The church is a documented work of the Rožmberk building lodge around 1500.