Bystré will renovate the oldest building in the town

Bystré (Svitavsko) - The Town Hall in Bystré is preparing to renovate the architecturally protected Brtoun's cottage, the oldest building in the town. Currently, it houses a mini-museum with exhibits of folk art and shoemaking, which used to be very common in this poor hilly area. Miloslav Sejkora, the mayor, said this to ČTK.

The timber-framed cottage with an L-shaped floor plan has stood in Bystré since 1723 when Jiřík Michl built the cottage on communal land. It consists of a small room with two windows on the façade, an entryway with a black kitchen, and two chambers. Attached to this part is a masonry wing with a shoemaking workshop and a barn.

The Town Hall will spend 270,000 crowns to repair the chimney, the shingle roof, and the plank fencing. A grant of 70,000 crowns was provided by the Pardubice Region.

The house has had several owners, the most notable of whom was Jan Brtoun, a patriot and promoter of the ideas of Karel Havlíček Borovský, who lived there from 1848 to 1868. Brtoun was also a shoemaker by profession. He is also one of the characters in Tereza Nováková's novel Na Librově gruntě.

"The shoemaking craft was very widespread here. In the past, every farmer, or rather householder, practiced it during the winter," Sejkora stated. After World War II, the town had a shoe factory called Botana Skuteč, which ceased to exist in the 1990s. Today, there is only one shoemaker in Bystré.