Černotín

Černotín is a small village in the Plzeň-jih district of the Czech Republic. It lies five kilometres south-west of Dobřany on the left bank of the Dnešický stream, which feeds two fishponds north of the village. The Křížový hill rises 133 metres above the stream to the west, and the main road from Stod to Přeštice passes through the settlement. Nearby hamlets include Bayerův Důl and Vstiš to the north, and Dnešice to the south-east.

The village first appears in a 13th-century charter of Chotěšov monastery. After the Thirty Years’ War the monastery brought German settlers to repopulate the land. By 1910 the population numbered 299, all but five of them German. After the Second World War the German inhabitants were expelled, and in 1961 Černotín was merged into the municipality of Dnešice. Today the village contains a riding school and a collection of historic farmsteads.

A hexagonal chapel stands at the centre of the village. From the chapel a restored way of the cross climbs Křížový hill to the remains of a former church and an observation tower. The Hyperion farmstead, built in the 18th century and remodelled between 1901 and 1916, now serves as an open-air museum and hosts an annual jazz festival. The farm’s barn, bakehouse and orchard illustrate rural life of the past two centuries.