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About Holesovice

The life of the more remote Holesovice (earlier also Holejšovice or Holýšovice) developed quite differently from Bubny with its fisheries. It was mainly an agricultural settlement. The name of Holesovice is first mentioned in historical records in 1228 as royal property. Up to the 16th century this farming hamlet did not develop in any way and the number of farms there remained the same. Only in the 18th century did the farms start to decline and from the mid-19th century Holesovice was gradually transformed into a city suburb.

Holešovice-Bubny

In 1850 Holesovice was merged with Bubny into a single Prague urban district, although the two parts continued to develop in relative independence of each other. From the end of the 19th century Bubny was directly connected with Prague by a chain bridge and served mainly as a district of residential apartment blocks, while Holesovice concentrated more on the building factories and became a peripheral industrial district.

In 1884 Holešovice-Bubny was incorporated into the City of Prague as its seventh district (after the Old Town, the New Town, the Lesser Town, Hradčany, Josefov and Vyšehrad). The district underwent rapid growth.

While in 1857 there were a mere 110 houses with 1,200 inhabitants, at the beginning of the 20th century there were already 780 house numbers, and a population of 30,000.

In 1881 there were already 32 factories in Holesovice but the greatest turning-point in the history of Holesovice was the construction of the unique Karlin Rail Viaduct, which brought the railway from the State Station (today Masaryk Station) onto the Prague-Dresden Line. The Holesovice and Bubny stations were built at the same time, and the railway was later connected up to steamboat transport to Hamburg.