The oldest report about the village Demjata dates back to 1332, when it is mentioned that the local church was occupied by the parish priest Matej. In documents from the 14th to the 16th century Demjata is mentioned under the name Demethe. It is a Hungarianized name of the original Slovak name originating in the Slovak personal name. In the middle of the 15th century the village was divided into Lower and Upper Demjata. In the western part, the manor house „Hámoš“ with an adjacent park forms an urban and architectural landmark.
It was built in the second half of the 16th century as a Renaissance manor house called „Hámoš“ or Amos manor house, after the last owners. Originally a Renaissance building, it was later rebuilt in Baroque style in 1764. It is a two-storey four-winged building with a rectangular plan, forming an inner atrium courtyard. The façades originally had profiled stone window lining (a few surviving on the west façade). On the main (east) façade is a centrally located staircase with a Baroque portal, flanked by featured columns and an ornate volute gable. Above the portal is a Baroque window. On the sides of the front façade, on the original Renaissance corbels, are new historicizing bay windows. The façade is terminated by a horizontal row of gunports and a crown cornice.
The manor house originally had a gable attic made of semicircular gables, which have been preserved on the north side of the courtyard facade. The courtyard originally had an open arcade which is bricked up. A square three-storey tower is situated at the south-west corner of the manor house. The interior of the building has Renaissance vaults on the ground floor and Prussian vaults on the second floor. At the end of the 19th century, a nature and landscape park was established next to the manor house, probably on an older layout.
At present, only a torso of the original park layout has been preserved. The whole western part of the park area has been parcelled out in recent years and the houses have reached the manor house, which has significantly disturbed its compositional balance. In the southern ornamental part of the park a grass playground has been betrayed. Of the original trees, the following are of horticultural and dendrological value: the large-leaved linden, the red-leaved beech, the horse chestnut, the slender ash and the tree-like bristlecone dogwood. Although the original layout of the park has been reduced and compositionally disturbed, there is still a land reserve for the restoration of the ornamental part that has disappeared and the possibility of restoring the park as a testimony to the period development of garden art in the region.
Source/Photo: village Demjata
