The present appearance of the capitulary basilica of St Peter and Paul rose in the years 1885-1903 during neo-gothic reconstruction based on design by arch. Josef Mocker. The reconstruction reduced the last remains of medieval character of the building, which had been kept in its baroque form. In the last reconstruction phase the whole three-part baroque frontage was completely demolished and high neo-gothic towers with atria were built. The design for them was originally elaborated by arch. Josef Mocker as well, but after his death he was altered by his colleague arch. František Mikš. In addition, on western side the church was prolonged with part of arc between columns. The main entrance tympanum has a beautiful sculptural decoration with the Last Judgement motif, which was made by sculptor and carver Štěpán Zálešák. Order cemetery of Sisters of St Elizabeth had to be removed by tens of meters so that it was possible to extend the church in the western side and to create distinct spacing at the main frontage. Furthermore, the verger’s house no. 11, which had stood just in the cemetery, had to be demolished. To substitute that a neo-gothic house no. 102 was built in 1886 based on designs by arch. Václav Sigmund. On the corner of this house a memorial tablet in the honour of Czech Queen Elisabeth of Bohemia was unveiled on 29th June 1995; it was a piece by academic sculptor Lumír Šindelář and metal-founder Jindřich Janeček. From the area in front of the main frontage you may enter the sacred land of Vyšehrad cemetery, through one of three possible entrances; there have been buried many outstanding men and women of the Czech nation. In the south-western corner of the cemetery fencing there is standing a sandstone statue of St Ludmila in an alcove. The saint woman is holding one of her attributes, a kerchief wound around her neck, with which she had been strangled, according to a myth, in 921 in her widow palace, Tetín.
