Work in the 2020 season

During the 2020 season, we continued working on the archeology exploration, and monastery conservation started the previous year. Despite the pandemic, work progressed at a good pace.

Archeological research was carried out in three excavation sites. We uncovered the cloister garth’s SE and SW corner and continued exposing the monastery garden’s fencing wall.

We mostly worked on the conservation of the SE corner of the monastery. We mortar pointed the masonry, reattached the original, partially detached plasters, masoned the top part of the walls, and then laid a grass layer on them. We added three window niches for the wall stability and continued with the original static system’s reconstruction. We inserted hand-hewn oak beams into the places where they originally were in the perimeter walls. We contracted the cloister wings with iron rods, which used to reduce strain on the walls under the vaults’ load.

We have made a presentation of the tomb shaft situated on the floor in the crypt. For the safety of our visitors, we’ve also added a railing around the crypt’s entrance.

Work planned for 2020

In the working season 2020, we plan to focus mainly on the monastery.

Four archaeologic test pits will be made in the monastery. Two of them will focus on uncovering of the monastery garden enclosure wall and they follow the wall restoration works from previous years. Archaeologic research will be followed by conservation and masonry work. The other two test pits will research the corners of the big quad on the monastery side and the entrance from monastery to the quad.

We will continue with the conservation and reconstruction of the southeast part of the standing monastery wing with the aim to conserve and statically stabilize the ruin. We will restore the fallen window arch and insert the hand-carved oak beams into the walls to extend and restore the original wooden-metallic stabilizing wall system.

In the church nave, we plan to place the crypt entrance cover and add a safety railing around it. Afterwards, the “big crypt” can be made accessible to tourists.