Ritterburg, or the Workers' House

At the crossroads of today’s Masarykova Avenue and Okružní Street, there was an inn as early as the 16th century. It took its name, Ritterburg, from the innkeeper Jakob Ritter, who owned it in the 19th century; later, however, the name Workers’ House caught on. Pilgrims on their way to Bohosudov traditionally met and refreshed themselves at this inn, for example on a feast of the Virgin Mary or on St. Wenceslas’ Day.

The painting on the front of the house is also connected with the religious importance of Bohosudov. According to legend, when the Hussites were plundering the region, the nuns of the convent in Světec scattered and hid from the “warriors of God” in the forests. The only thing they saved from the convent was a small statue of Our Lady of Sorrows. All the nuns died in the forest, but before her death the last of them hid the statue in the trunk of a lime tree. The Virgin Mary was then said to have worked several miracles around Bohosudov. They include the healing spring in Bohosudov, the rescue of crusaders fleeing from the bloody battle of Na Běhání in 1426, and the rescue of a girl who had gone out with a sickle to cut grass. When a snake wound itself around her arm as she worked, the Virgin Mary saved her from being bitten.

At the end of the 20th century, the originally continuous row of houses along Masarykova Avenue was broken through, creating a busy crossroads. Pilgrimages no longer set out from here, and there is no inn here either. After its reconstruction in the 1990s, the building served a photographic company; today there are shops on the ground floor.