Hrádek, Fortified house ruins in Libomyšl, Czech Republic

Hrádek is a ruined fortified house on a hill at the eastern edge of Libomyšl. The 35 by 22 metre bailey is enclosed by a ditch up to 20 metres wide and a rampart 1 to 3 metres wide at its crown; on the north side the rampart becomes a flat terrace up to 4.5 metres wide, possibly a parkán. The rampart body is an earthen fill covered with a stony layer that may be the remains of a wall. Entry was probably from the northeast, where a hollow may mark a gate structure.

The first written record of Libomyšl dates to 1370, when Oldřich z Libomyšle held the estate and may already have lived at Hrádek. A charter of 1454 from King Ladislav confirms the fortress, court and mill to Vilém z Vraného and contains the first explicit mention of the tvrz. Archaeological finds show the fortress was abandoned during the 15th century, though its owners may have stayed until the 16th century.

The hilltop later held a chapel of Saint George, consecrated in 1698 and built by Count Bernard Jiří Vratislav of Mitrovice. Left unmaintained, it was closed in 1787 and bought that same 29 September by villagers for twenty gulden, who reused its wooden parts in the village school.

The fortress site is freely accessible, but no marked hiking trail or cycle route leads to it. The central mound is entered most likely from the northeast, where a hollow may be the remnant of a gate structure. A small pit quarry of unknown age lies on the southern edge, before the rampart.

A protected small-leaved linden tree grows within the fortress area, standing roughly 12 meters tall with a trunk measuring about 3 meters around. This old tree is a botanical survivor that has endured through the long history of the site.