14. Vicarage No. 46

Behind a small yard, the inconspicuous vicarage and deanery building No. 46 crouches in close proximity to the Church of Our Lady of the Visitation, to the sacristy of which it connects through a corridor. Its front faces the yard, and the eastern wing looks out on Kostelní Street and over the remains of mediaeval fortifications further on into the broad valley of the River Volyňka, and the cumbersome blocks of modern town neighbourhoods. The vicarage must have originated in the Middle Ages, along with the neighbouring church, but it owes its present shape to Renaissance and Baroque techniques. Owing to its position on an uneven rock it has complex internal articulation. Some rooms on the ground floor still have cylindrical vaults, and the narrow room past the first-floor staircase has a cross vault without ribs. Behind the deanery is the original farmyard.

The first recorded names of parish priests are from the 16th century, although there must have been some as early as the foundation of the new parish church at the bottom of the square in the 14th century. From the second half of the 16th century until the period after the battle of Bílá Hora in 1620, the parish was controlled by Protestants, and became Catholic once again, along with the whole of Bohemia, during the Thirty Years’ War.