Blackfields (Černá pole) walk

Our spring walk takes us through “Old Černá Pole,” the historic heart of the Černá Pole district, roughly bounded by Černopolní, Zemědělská, Jugoslávská, and Merhautova streets. Today, it is a quiet, middle-class residential neighbourhood—but its past is rich and complex.

Over time, Černá Pole has been known for its vineyards and brickworks, as the site of the country’s first youth correctional home, the location of early Brno villas for the upper-middle class, model workers’ houses, the first allotment gardens in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the country’s oldest gay club. It was also a departure point for the transport of Brno’s Jewish residents to Nazi death camps and home to the city’s only street with two names.

Although most housing appeared from the 1860s, Černá Pole only became an independent cadastral district a century later. This walk will reveal fascinating stories behind many of the buildings and sites in “Old Černá Pole,” connecting visitors to the district’s layered and sometimes surprising history.