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Builders have discovered the oldest blocks of stone on Charles Bridge hidden behind a screen of bricks which covered the lower face of the foot of the first Old Town arch of the bridge.

The discovery was made a few days ago. “During repair work on the bridge the builders were to carry out drainage of the reverse side of the Old Town buttress. Originally the foot of the arch was to be cut through to the area of the lagoon of today’s Charles Bridge Museum,” said Daut Kara of the Mott MacDonald company. “However, we found a more considerate solution and built a soak pit behind the buttress. Therefore we knocked down the brick screen covering the face of the foot of the bridge and thus discovered what is behind the screen,” said Kara.

A surprise in store

The builders did not knock down the screen completely, they only made an opening to gain access to the space behind it. On the bottom of the cavity lay a pile of mud, the remains of the flood in 2002, which has gradually dried out in the dampness and darkness. The ceiling of the arch had been covered with several layers of plaster. “Where the plaster had fallen off we were given a unique view of the surface of the beautiful smooth stone arch of the bridge. It was hard to believe that it was stone, and not another layer of smoothed plaster,” said Kara of the moment of discovery. “They were stones with stone-mason’s marks and it’s quite likely that they are in the same condition as when they were put in position by builders in the Gothic time. It is a unique example of the precision of the craftsmen’s work. As it is the first section of Charles Bridge, from which the work of building the bridge began, in all probability the brick screen hid the oldest block of stone from the 14th Century.”

Gothic covered by Baroque

According to conservationists, the plasterwork is from a later period, apparently baroque. If there was also some original plaster this, understandably, did not last and had to be renewed. The main purpose was to conceal flaws in appearance, as of course the stonework of Charles Bridge suffered in the course of time.

Stones hidden again

The stones themselves were very beautiful, smooth, polished, but with damaged edges and missing mortar. It was these defects that the plaster was evidently intended to cover. Specialists from the National Institute for the Protection and Conservation of Monuments carried out operational research and created photographic documentation thanks to building workers, who built scaffolding inside the space. When the research work was completed the stones once again disappeared in the darkness as builders bricked up the opening with the original bricks. Our portal now offers a glimpse of the original masonry from the Gothic era.