The U HRÁDKU *** Pension is located at number 25 Barborská Street, in the very heart of the historical part of the town. No matter whether you are on the way from St. Barbara’s Church to the Italian Court, the Palackého Square, the Stone Fountain (Kamenná kašna) or the Stone House (Kamenný dům), or going back – you will always pass our door. There is a restaurant and reception on the ground floor and hotel rooms in the upper floors today.

In 1422, when King Sigismund was retreating from the town, he started a fire. People were able to extinguish it, but the town’s fate was sealed when Jan Žižka, following Prokop Holý’s advice, did a much more thorough job at burning the town down. After that, Hussite sympathizers had the upper hand in the ruins of Kutná Hora. It is probable that some kind of settlement was present at the place where the current house is standing before 1424. In 1429 Michal, a townsman, bought the land plot in order to build a house. And when George of Poděbrady was elected King of Bohemia in the Italian Court in 1444 a special “cabin” was built on the first floor of the house, which is still part of the building to this day. Gothic and Renaissance vaults on the ground floor, wooden ceilings as well as a Gothic cellar have survived the centuries.

Over the course of years the house had over 40 owners. It was owned by barbers, miners, a furrier, a brewer, a cloth worker, a canner, but also a food merchant or a coal merchant. The house was substantially rebuilt in the second half of the 19th century and again in 1995. The Gothic cabin was gradually walled and that helped to preserve it to this day, when it could be restored into its current state.

To our current knowledge there is no evidence that an important local would ever live in the house directly. However, the neighbourhood is rife with such instances: Mikuláš Dačický z Heslova was born in a house about 200 meters from ours, the painter, Felix Jenewein lived practically next doors at No. 23 Barborská, or the significant Jesuit and chronicler, Jan Kořínek. Over the centuries, several hundred people lived in our house, who could witness, among others, the building of St. Barbara’s Church or Hrádek. Ruthardka and Barborská streets were frequented by the Jesuit sculptor, František Baugut, the playwright, J. K. Tyl, the writer and journalist, Karel Havlíček Borovský, the painter, Jan Zrzavý and many other historical and political figures.