The square-shaped castle with four corner towers is relatively small, but has an interesting history. So does the village of Ozd itself.

In 1997, when BPF began to use the estate, the castle was badly deteriorated. Some parts of the roof were missing, there were no windows at all, huge surfaces of wall had no plaster, walls had cracks and were saturated with water.

The first major construction work was the replacement of the roof between 1998 and 2001 to stop rain from entering. This was the most important step for stopping further deterioration of the building. The benefits of the new roof soon became evident: in the following years, walls got drier and drier. Later, temporary windows were installed in the whole second floor to protect the interior from the weather.

Smaller scale works were also done: The two largest rooms on the second floor were given a new base-floor and the building was cleaned up from the huge amount of debris.

Research

BPF intends to restore the castle in its original state, as far as possible.

For this reason, a wall research was performed in two phases: in 1998-99 and 2003. Wall paintings worth preserving or reconstructing were found in some of the rooms, mainly on the second floor. These were sometimes under multiple layers of plaster and paint.

Excavation was done in a section of the cellar filled with debris. We found stucco pieces, carved stones and interesting old stove tiles made by Habans. (The Habans were an Anabaptist community expelled from Switzerland to Austria and later to Bohemia. They moved to Slovakia/Northern Hungary in the 16th century. Haban families lived together in isolation and were self-sufficient in their community.They were skilful craftsmen, excelled especially in pottery.)