History of the house

Written sources show that the history of the house in present-day Hroznová Street no. 28 dates right back to the Middle Ages. Its fate is marked by a large fire, but also by many generations of honest craftsmen who ran a bakery, butcher’s shop or malt workshop here. Czech and German were spoken here since the local residents were alternately made up of members of both nationalities living in the city.

However originally the house was much bigger and was even one of the most extensive in the city being gradually divided up into several smaller houses. The medieval building occupied the space on the corner of Hroznová and Plachého Street, on the sites of the current addresses of Hroznová nos. 28 and 26, Plachého nos. 5, 7 and 9. Only the most affluent burgher families could afford to live in a house that was of similar size. And the year 1395 mentions the prominent burgher Paul Herusch as being the owner. Sometime in the early 15th century he evidently had to sell his property so the house came to be owned by a wealthy man with the lovely surname of Jan Hojamoj, a graduate of medicine and a devout man who contributed to the building of an altar in the parish church. But it was at this time that the northern part of the land plot was split away and this was where baker Andrlin built a separate house which is today’s Plachého no. 9.

It was as though the Herusch family did not want to give up their old residence. In the years 1482 to 1514 the large corner house came to be owned again by Paul Herusch, probably the grandson or great grandson of the previous owner. For a short time the building was passed on to Anna Benešová of Jívovice, a woman who came from an ancient knightly family, and then again by Petr Herusch. We know that he ran a malting business that was highly regarded and very profitable. In 1555 the property was inherited by his son Vincenc Herusch, but he was the last of the burgher dynasty, and in 1578 his widow Uršula sold the entire house to Bartoloměj Friczko. Just before the Thirty Years’ War the estate was taken over by Benedikt Friczko, who lived to suffer a terrible disaster – a huge fire on 24 July 1641,and due to a wind the fire spread from one dry roof to the next, consuming the entire block of houses in the surrounding area of Hroznová and Plachého streets.

The burnt out site was then bought by master baker Václav Zeissl, who tried for a long time to restore the house, but it evidently was beyond his efforts. He repaired or built only a small section before finally deciding to sell everything. He probably did not find a buyer interested in such an enormous land plot and divided the property up into two unequal parts: the smaller eastern side was bought in 1674 by shoemaker Tobiáš Richter (this led to the building of a separate house, now Plachého nos. 5 and 7), and the somewhat more extensive western part was acquired from Zeissl in 1679 by miller Jan Měřička. This date sees the beginning of the separate history of the house in Hroznová no. 28.

Jan Měřička used the house for quite a long time and most likely he rebuilt it in the Baroque style. It was not bought from Měřička until 1722 by another miller called Jiří Lydman, followed by Ondřej Urban and in 1737 by master butcher Dominik Planer. His family also stayed here for some time as did the trade. The ownership of the house was permanently associated with one of the shops in the nearby meat shops. There was a change in generations in 1761 when the house was inherited by butcher František Ploner, and after him in 1798 by Matyáš Ploner, also a master butcher. Matyáš had the house completely rebuilt in 1813 in the Classicist style, as it was designed and built by architect Jan Marek Hofer, thereby basically imprinting the house with its present appearance. Fortunately, the short arcade was retained making the house look special and different from its neighbours today. But originally there used to be far more houses in Hroznová Street which during the 18th and 19th century gradually disappeared for various reasons.

Matyáš’s daughter Františka Plonerová still owned the house after 1852. The departure of the Ploners also saw the end of the butcher’s trade giving way to the tradition of a bakery here for long decades. At the end of the 19th century it was run by Tomáš Jasan, who had a left courtyard wing containing a bakery workshop on the ground floor and residential rooms on the first floor added in 1894. The bakery business continued to be expanded by his successor Karel Schmidtmayer, who married Anastázie Jasanová, and in 1911 had the transversal back wing built. After Schmidtmayer the house with the bakery was taken over in the twentieth century by František Bambule, the last private baker to fill Hroznová Street with the lovely smell of his buns until 1948.

Daniel Kovář, České Budějovice State District Archives