Velký Bor — The first documented written record dates from 1283, when Velký Bor was held by Jetřich Špacman. The village had its own fortified castle, which stood on the hill where the school is situated today. The ramparts extended as far as the pond through which the Velkoborský stream flows. The area around the school is still called "Na Hradě" (At the Castle) to this day. Velký Bor was once a market town and according to legend had two churches. During the Thirty Years' War Bor was devastated and greatly impoverished, to the point that both the castle and the rectory ceased to exist. The village was at that time attached to the parish of Malý Bor. The last remnants of the former castle disappeared under the rule of Princess Marie Karolína of Löwenstein, who had a long, neat building erected on the castle's foundations, in which an almshouse for twelve poor women and men was established in 1765. A chapel of SS John and Paul was also established alongside the almshouse. The almshouse and chapel were dissolved in 1788 under Emperor Joseph II. Later owners included the counts of Rumerskirch, from whom Bor together with the entire Horažďovice estate passed by purchase to the princely Kinský family. In 1820 part of the former almshouse and chapel was converted into a school and accommodation for manorial servants. In the 1870s the village purchased the entire building for four thousand guilders and had it adapted for school purposes. Below the "castle" on the hill stands the Church of St John the Baptist, depicted on the high altar by J. Schmidt in 1878. The church is originally Romanesque and early Gothic, dating from the late 13th and first half of the 14th century. It has a closed pentagonal presbytery with a sacristy, vaulted with a ribbed cross-vault from 1500, containing three slightly pointed walled-up windows with remnants of trefoil tracery, now filled with modern stained glass. On the north side altar stands a Gothic statue of the Madonna from the mid-15th century; in the nave the Gothic stone baptismal font has been restored; an early Gothic portal leads to the vestibule by the sacristy. The church nave was remodelled in the baroque style in the 18th century; the church furnishings date from around 1761. The massive prismatic tower on the north-western side of the nave was raised in height after 1836. In the 1970s the marble floor and beamed ceiling were repaired.