Držník Pond - Blast furnace
At the end of the 18th century, Hradčany was not a resort, but a lively iron ore business. The iron ore mined at Havířský vrch a Buk Mountains was transported here and smelted in a blast furnace that stood beneath the dam of Držník Pond. The local landscape looked different. The blast furnace was 8 metres tall and was equipped with a water wheel; around it, a stockpile of up to 200 tonnes of iron ore that lay in heaps almost 2 metres high. Beneath the furnace, there were heaps of slag that local farmers used to remove up until 1920 - that is 123 years after the furnace went cold - to to reuse it as road paving. There were probably other ironworks in the vicinity.
How do you know that there really used to be a blast furnace here? When you look closely under the pond dam, you can still find the slag dump there. And how do you recognize it? Slag is a waste material from the production of iron. It is darker in colour, usually with sharp edges.
The virtual trail
The stop is part of the virtual trail that will lead you to places in the Ralsko Geopark that are associated with iron ore mining.
How to do it?
Download the app. The app is data intensive, we recommend downloading it while on Wi-Fi. Once you have downloaded the app, all you need to do is to find the relevant stop in the app and scan the QR code in the header of the board.