Zprávy památkové péče 2018, 78(4):356-366 | DOI: 10.56112/zpp.2018.4.09

Farmhouse No. 8 in Letařovice. Information obtained from a survey of a country house from the mid-17th century in the Český Dub area

Tereza Konvalinková, Martin Ouhrabka

NPÚ, ÚOP v Liberci

The study presents the history, constructional form, and evolution of farmhouse No. 8 in Letařovice (Liberec District), which represents one of the oldest surviving layers of rural architecture in the Liberec Region. It presents the results of a detailed operational documentation of the current state of the house; the house has been preserved in an extremely authentic constructional and material form from the time of its construction in the middle of the 17th century.
The areas known as Českodubsko, Podještědí, and Pojizeří are specific in their occurrence of structures bearing the oldest surviving constructional layer of rural architecture; this provides information about the transition phase of development from the concept of smoky kitchen dwelling to the living room and the structural design of the relationship between the high living space and the ground-floor layout of the agricultural part of the house.
Farmhouse No. 8 is located in the northern enclave of a dispersed built-up area of Letařovice on plots situated above the access road. The construction, oriented longitudinally along the north-south axis, is accompanied by a separate masonry farm building with stables adjacent to the yard from the northeast.
The all-timber house with rectangular ground plan stands on a slight raised terrain, and its southern gabled facade faces the roadway to the south. The agricultural part of the building is two-storeyed, with the level of the chamber floor levelled in the living area with a high room and half-storeyed periphery. The saddle roof, asymmetrically placed with an overlap over the eastern longitudinal front, is covered by asphalt. The interior layout of the ground floor is based on a three-part arrangement, with the living room in the southern part connecting to an impassable hall and a two-room agricultural part. The masonry niche of the kitchen is inserted into the southwest corner of the hall. On the upper floor the timber part is connected to the dwelling part of the hall and a chamber accessible through an outdoor gallery. The cellar is recessed outside the house plan along the west facade. Within the floor plan of the cellar, a longitudinal shelter covered by the extended roof runs adjacent to the agricultural part. The originally timber area of the shelter was replaced by a closed-in structure with the same extent. This has recently been completely removed.
The history of the farmhouse is associated with the Mizera family, which is mentioned for the first time in 1651, when Petr Mizera and his wife Lidmila and son Jan were mentioned in a list of subjects. Results of a dendrochronological analysis date the harvest of the fir and spruce construction wood to the years 1647-1650. The house was most likely newly built by Petr Mizera on an undeveloped plot just after the end of the Thirty Years' War.
The appearance of the house has not changed significantly since its construction. Most of the surviving timbered walls, parts of horizontal structures, a number of building elements and details, and most of all its layout and integration into the exterior are apparently from the time of its first construction. A more significant constructional event can be placed at the first half of the 19th century. In addition to the presumed broader replacement of the lower level of the timbering, the most remarkable change was the reconstruction of the truss from the early 1920's and the modernization of the heating system. The course of the 20th century brought modifications to the interior such as plastering the living rooms, the exchange of the historical roof coverings for asphalt, and partial modifications for recreational use.
The house has been preserved in a very authentic state without major modernization modification and therefore bears a number of original construction and building details applicable to the approximate dating of other such structures. The preserved and essentially simple layout of the interior and its integration into the exterior can also be applied to the understanding of other variant forms of other buildings with a more complex and richer constructional evolution; this topic is also the focus of a field survey of the Českodubsko and Pojizeří areas (e.g. house No. 21 in Frýdštejn, house No. 5 in Trávníček, and house No. 26 in Petrašovice.

Keywords: folk architecture, Český Dub, Letařovice, Liberec Region, field survey, heritage care

Published: December 1, 2018  Show citation