Good climatic conditions of local landscape attracted the first inhabitants already in the Paleolithic era and they were followed by a number of younger cultures. The first traces of medieval settlement with a fort on the Gothard Hill (352 m above sea level) date back in the mid- 12th century. It was established by the Prague Premonstratensians together with a church consecrated to St. Gothard. Later the hill itself took over the Saint´s name. In the 13th century the settlement moves to a strategically more advantageous location on the foot of the hill and this step undoubtedly leads to the development of the settlement into a town. A second church of Hořice consecrated to Virgin Maria was established there, a spacious market place and another fort. The records from 1635 refer to Hořice as a town. At the beginning of the 15th century the fate of the region was strongly affected by Hussite Movement. In April 1423 a battle took place on the Gothard hill where the field army of Jan Žižka defeated the troops of the Lord´s Unity lead by Čeněk of Vartenberk.
A number of feudal lords were in possession of the town of Hořice and the surroundings over the centuries. However, the estate most flourished under the rule of the house of Smiřický from the mid-16th century to the first quarter of the 17th century. Jan Albrecht Smiřický was involved in the Uprising of the Estates. As a result, Hořice estate was confiscated by the Emperor, and after the defeat in the battle of Bílá Hora in 1620 he gave the estate along with other property to the commander of the imperial army, Albrecht of Wallenstein.
After the violent death of Wallenstein in Cheb in 1634 the Emperor Ferdinand II gave the Hořice estate to his chamberlain and field marshal Jacob Strozzi as a reward for his service. His son Peter, who also chose the military and diplomatic career, became Strozzi´s heir. In 1644 he died childless at the age of 38 in a war campaign against the Turks. He bequeathed his property to the establishment of a veteran soldier foundation that was to provide for soldiers aged or disabled in service to the Emperor. The yield of this foundation was used to build a retirement home for soldiers in Prague, Karlín in the 30s of the 18th century. In the mid-18th century the administration of the foundation was taken over by the state. In 1780s the Hořice estate went through so called raabisation, a reform, in which the land was divided into allotments and leased to the retainers.
The 19th century brought some major changes to the life of the town. The culture life of Hořice was influenced by the closeness of Hradec Králové, one of the major centers of the national revival movement. There are records of Czech amateur performances at the end of the 18th century and in the 1920s a national revival priest Alois Tadeáš Hanl opened his library to the public. Although the mainly wooden town suffered countless fires in its history the biggest and most destructive one came in 1846 when the whole east part of the square burnt down within half an hour. For the reconstruction of the houses stone was preferably used which supported the development of stone mining in numerous local quarries and Hořice turns into a real town. This transformation went along with the economic development of the town.
In the 18th century a number of factoring companies were operating in Hořice, buying cloth from home weavers and exporting it to Prague, Vienna and other bigger cities. In the second half of the 19th century several mechanical weaving mills were established by Jewish entrepreneurs (Hirsch, Goldschmidt, Mauthner and Feuerstein). They had their residential villas built in the town. There was also progress in sandstone mining, which was delivered to major constructions carried out all over the country. In 1882 the railway transportation was commenced in Hořice. In the second half of the 19th century the culture life of the town made further progress; in 1858 an ensemble of amateur actors was established, followed by the male glee club Ratibor in 1862, the ladies’ club Vesna eight years later, the musical ensemble Dalibor in 1881 and many other clubs and associations. In 1884 the famous secondary vocational school of stonemasonry was established. It was attended by a number of renowned Czech artists - Mořic Černil, Quido Kocián, Jan Štursa, Bohumil Kafka, Otakar Kubín, Marie Wágnerová-Kulhánková, Kurt Gebauer, Ellen Jilemnická and many others. Later on more secondary schools were opened in the town, a commercial school, transformed into business academy in 1914, a girl’s institute Vesna in 1908, and an agricultural school and a grammar school in 1945.
Let’s go back to the 1860s when the life of the town was affected by the Austro-Prussian War. The decisive battle of this war took place on July 3th 1866 at the nearby village of Sadová. This war left behind tens of thousands dead and wounded soldiers. This is commemorated by hundreds of small war memorials scattered all over the region. Hořice was not only the Prussian command post but it also served as a hospital where hundreds of wounded were brought, many of whom found their final resting place in the cemetery on the Gothard Hill.