Lomnice - Chateau

Chateau Lomnice, originally a Gothic castle, stands in the middle of a park east of the main square of the town of Lomnice. The exceptionally valuable chateau complex includes an early Gothic castle, a late Gothic chapel, Renaissance arcades and Baroque and Neo-Gothic elements. It has been listed as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic since 1964.

The predecessor of the Lomnice chateau was an early Gothic castle, whose oldest known owner was Oldřich of Lomnice, first mentioned in 1265. After the family of the Lomnice lords died out, the estate passed to Jan the Elder of Žerotín in 1566. In 1589 Karel the Elder of Žerotín sold the Lomnice estate to Oldřich of Kounice. Lomnice was then inherited by Fridrich of Kounice, a leading representative of the Moravian estates and an active participant in the estates‘ resistance in the years 1618–1620. After the defeat of the uprising in 1620, Fridrich of Kounice was imprisoned, and his estate was confiscated. After a short period when the estate was owned by the Breuner and Mansfeld families, in 1662 the Lomnice estate was bought by the Moravian Provincial Governor Count Gabriel Serényi and in 1664 it was inherited by Count František Gabriel Serényi. During his ownership the Renaissance chateau was extensively rebuilt and the chateau interiors were adapted according to the plans of the Brno master builder Jan Křtitel Erna.

The chateau reached its greatest prosperity after 1700, when Antonín Amatus Serényi became the owner of the estate. During this period the chateau was extended and rebuilt on a grand scale. The entrance to the chateau was decorated with a Renaissance portal, which was transferred here from the Serényi Palace in Brno. Further modifications took place in the second half of the 18th century, when Lomnice was owned by Count Vincenc Serényi (1751–1810), an enlightened aristocrat and the founder of the Luhačovice spa. In addition to the reconstruction of the chateau, the estate farm (now no longer existing) and the brewery and school acquired their present form. Alois Serényi (1812–1893), together with his wife Countess Ernestina Žerotínová, significantly modernized the Lomnice chateau and founded today‘s cemetery. The park was converted into an English landscape garden with a Neo-Gothic gazebo, which was built on the foundations of a medieval tower.

After World War II steps were taken to confiscate the estate on the grounds of President Beneš‘s decrees. During the Communist regime the interior of the chateau was ransacked and due to a lack of interest in this monument the whole building fell into disrepair. Since the 1970s the chateau was the seat of the Secondary Vocational School SČMSD, which ended its activities in 2018.

After a long-running restitution dispute the chateau was returned to the rightful heirs of the original owners, to the Thienen-Adlerflycht family. The current owner of the Lomnice chateau is Franz Baron Thienen-Adlerflycht.