Large Depot
Velký Depot refers to the site of a former permanent training camp for Austrian artillery troops. The name “Depot” came from its later use as a storage facility. The vast training ground, covering nearly 40 hectares, was established in 1749 as part of the reorganization of the Austrian artillery and operated until 1866.
After the camp was dismantled, the original fortification structures – ravelins, parallels, bastions – and dozens of temporary buildings such as laboratories, workshops, stables, smithies, a bakery, and even 17 inns, were all leveled. Preserved are rare remains of a training fortress (earthworks and ditches) in a nearby grove fittingly named Šance. Near the hamlet of Širočiny, one can find the remains of an epaulement (a low earthen bullet trap) and two masonry structures near the road from Týn nad Vltavou to Tábor: the former inn “Bída” and the now-ruined estate of senior military officers.
The site is dominated today by a Baroque sandstone sculpture group commemorating a catastrophe that occurred at the camp on June 21, 1753, when gunpowder ignited in two artillery laboratories, causing an explosion that killed over 80 "pyrotechnicians" and seriously injured more than 40. According to legend, the explosion was an attempted assassination of Empress Maria Theresa, who was due to attend military maneuvers. The Empress did visit the camp and nearby Týn nad Vltavou on August 6, and reportedly ordered a monumental sculpture of the Crucified Christ, St. John, and Our Lady of Sorrows to be erected. Some sources attribute the statues to students of Ferdinand Maxmilian Brokoff or Matthias Bernard Braun. The exact origin and date of the sculptures are unknown; one bears the year 1750, which may have been a mistake from a later restoration or indicate reuse of earlier statues.
Velký Depot is accessible by foot from the Hlinecké housing estate in Týn nad Vltavou via the yellow tourist trail. It is located near the road from Týn nad Vltavou to Tábor, about 2 km outside the town.
