Czechia · Restored
Švihov Castle
Vodní hrad Švihov
Švihov Castle is a late Gothic water castle in Švihov in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic. Built and rebuilt by the Rýzmberk of Skála family with major works by Benedikt Rejt, it is known for its moat system with massive horseshoe-shaped bastions, a tall entrance tower and a chapel built atop a bastion. The site today is conserved and open to the public.
First raised
1500
Its prime
1520
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1520
What Švihov Castle looked like in its prime.
Long low curtain walls of pale rubble stone with a darker battered base surround an elongated rectangular complex set within water moats and ponds. The silhouette includes a cone-roofed round corner tower at the left, a tall square five-level entrance tower near the centre with a pointed cap, and a chapel block at the right with arched windows and a small roof spire. Red clay tile roofs cover the palaces and service ranges; four large bastions project into the moats.
Its story
The story of Švihov Castle.
Švihov Castle is a late Gothic water castle in the Plzeň Region, built by the Rýzmberk of Skála noble family, with major works by the master builder Benedikt Rejt. Two water moats ringed it, the inner where the courtyard now lies, fed at need from three nearby ponds, behind ramparts studded with four bastions: the Red, the White, the Green and the Gold, whose remains were rediscovered in 1951.
The complex consists of two residential palaces, a five-level entrance tower and a chapel built on top of a bastion by Půta von Schwihau between 1480 and 1489, its entrance hall net-vaulted with ribs converging on a single painted keystone. Valuable 16th-century wall paintings survive in the Red Bastion, the chapel and other rooms.
The Kavka of Říčany family later took control of the castle, but after some fifty years their poor management forced them to sell it to the Czernin family. The castle is conserved and open to the public today: the armoury, the kitchen with mainly 18th-century furnishings, the feast hall, chapel, bed chambers and the Great Hall with its wooden cassette ceiling brought from Dobrovice Castle.
Step inside
12 places to explore in 1520.
The record describes 12 distinct spots at Švihov Castle, including 7 interiors: chapel nave and vault, the red bastion (interior), the great hall with wooden cassette ceiling and more. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Build Your Own Castle
Recreate Švihov Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1520, a photoreal reconstruction that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
Recreate this castle →Castle Siege
Play Castle Siege at Švihov Castle.
A strategy game played on Švihov Castle’s real ground plan: the same surveyed walls shown in the archive below. Post your finite garrison on the battlements between assaults, then hold out as rams, siege towers, trebuchets and sappers arrive in ever-worse waves.
Sign in free to see the garrison muster. One castle costs 150 Clan Coins and is yours forever.
Sign in to take command →Whose castle
Clans who held Švihov Castle.
The families that held Švihov Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Rýzmberk
The Rýzmberk of Skála family built the castle and shaped its late Gothic form.
Kavka
The Kavka of Říčany family held Švihov for some fifty years before poor management forced its sale.
Czernin
Bought from the Kavkas of Říčany, who were forced to sell after fifty years of poor management.
From the archive
Švihov Castle on paper: the measured plan and period views.
The survey plan and photographs below are the ground truth this page's reconstructions are checked against, drawn and photographed while the castle was still a working garrison. Every image is public-domain or openly licensed, with its source named.
Obr. 1. Hrad Švihov ke konci XV. věku. Dle současné fresky v kapli.
1878 · Památky archaeologické a místopisné: organ Archaeologického sboru Musea království Českého
Public domain (Moravian Library)
