Discover Szirák: Church, Castle and Teleki Tomb

Discover Szirák through its architectural and family history. The village’s notable historic buildings include the Evangelical church, Teleki-Degenfeld Castle and the tomb of the noble Teleki family in the cemetery. Their different functions—as a place of worship, a former aristocratic residence and a tomb—offer several ways to explore the history of the village.

Church, Castle and Teleki Tomb

The Evangelical church in Szirák was completed in 1788. Teleki-Degenfeld Castle is a protected historic building and a former aristocratic residence. Szirák is therefore home to two distinct architectural histories: the completion of the church and the castle’s former use as an aristocratic residence.

The tomb of the noble Teleki family was built in the cemetery in Szirák in 1784. The late Baroque structure has a rectangular floor plan. Inside is an epitaph made of red Tardos limestone. Its inscription, in Hungarian and Latin, is engraved and gilded. The years 1784 and 1788 are only four years apart, but refer to different events: the construction of the tomb and the completion of the church.

More cultural and natural attractions in the wider destination of Neuburg

The wider destination of Neuburg also encompasses distinct cultural and natural attractions. The old village of Hollókő is a Palóc settlement in Nógrád County in northern Hungary and a deliberately preserved, living example of rural life before the 20th-century agricultural revolution.

Museums in the wider destination of Neuburg focus on a variety of subjects. The Madách Imre Memorial House in Csesztve features a permanent exhibition on the history of the Madách family, focusing on “Az ember tragédiája.” In Horpács, the Mikszáth Kálmán Memorial Museum’s permanent literary history exhibition is titled “MIKSZÁTH.” The Pásztó Museum is housed in a Baroque Cistercian monastery building rebuilt in 1717–1718. Alongside permanent and temporary exhibitions, the museum presents a medieval glassworks and blacksmith’s workshop as an open-air exhibition and as a unique industrial heritage monument in Hungary.

Natural history and geology offer another perspective on the wider destination of Neuburg. The Boszorkány-kő geological trail is located in the Karancs-Medves Landscape Protection Area, established in 1989 and covering 6,928.6 hectares. It illustrates basalt volcanism from 2.4 to 5.2 million years ago. Features on display include inclusions of deep-seated sediments, curved lava plates and basalt columns formed by weathering. At the Ipolytarnóc Fossils Nature Reserve, a fossil site protected since 1944, shark teeth, petrified trees, leaf impressions and fossilised animal tracks have been preserved, among other finds. They bear witness to a prehistoric world destroyed by a volcanic catastrophe 17 million years ago. In the wider destination of Neuburg, the interactive exhibitions and lectures at the Geocsodák House in Salgótarján offer another way to explore geology.

Discover more destinations: Bér, Kozárd, Szurdokpüspöki, Buják, Pásztó, Jobbágyi, Vanyarc, Alsótold.

Back to the overview of the wider destination: Pásztói.