Windmill in Příčovy, Granite windmill ruins in Příčovy, Czech Republic

The windmill in Příčovy is a cylindrical tower ruin built from rubble and granite, standing on a small hill near a pond. The remaining structure reveals how these buildings concentrated all the milling machinery within one solid, compact form.

The ruin is a technical structure from the 18th century, probably built in its first half in connection with the construction of the Příčovy manor and farmyard by the Schönpflug family. Mentions of a mill on Chlumky hill appear as early as 1604 and 1617, but there is no direct proof that they refer to this unusually large windmill. It likely served its purpose only until the end of the 18th century and has been decaying since.

This structure shows how rural communities harnessed wind to process grain and support their daily life. The practice was central to how villages fed themselves and organized their work.

The ruin stands about 80 metres north of the road from Příčovy to Dublovice, roughly 300 metres northwest of the village edge, on a low rock outcrop on Chlumky hill at 400 metres above sea level. No marked paths or information panels are documented; the terrain is a grassy slope. About one fifth of the circuit on the east side has already disappeared, so keep to the outside of the walls.

The mill's circular plan measures over 13 metres across, and the lower wall is up to 1.2 metres thick. Its size has no parallel in the Czech Republic or elsewhere in Europe, so it was once doubted that the building was a windmill at all. Archaeological and building research in the 1990s confirmed it served as a Dutch-type windmill.